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THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

















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Against that savage 'background of mountain and 
gorge she stood out clear-cut as a cameo, slender as a 
reed; wild, palpitating, beautiful. She was more than 
a picture. She was Life. 



THE COURAGE OF 
MARGE O’DOONE 

BY 

JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD 

AUTHOR OF 

KAZAN, THE WOLF HUNTERS, 

THE GRIZZLY KING, Etc, 



GROSSET & DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 






* 



COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & 
COMPANY, INC. COPYRIGHT, I9l6, BY EVERY 
WEEK CORPORATION, UNDER THE TITLE “THE 
GIRL BEYOND THE TRAIL/* ALL RIGHTS RE¬ 
SERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 


\ 




THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 




THE COURAGE OF 
MARGE O’DOONE 


CHAPTER I 

I F YOU had stood there in the edge of the bleak 
spruce forest, with the wind moaning dismally 
through the twisting trees—midnight of deep 
December—the Transcontinental would have looked 
like a thing of fire; dull fire, glowing with a smouldering 
warmth, but of strange ghostliness and out of place. It 
was a weird shadow, helpless and without motion, and 
black as the half-Arctic night save for the band of il¬ 
lumination that cut it in twain from the first coach to 
the last, with a space like an inky hyphen where the 
baggage car lay. Out of the North came armies of snow¬ 
laden clouds that scudded just above the earth, and with 
these clouds came now and then a shrieking mockery of 
wind to taunt this stricken creation of man and the crea¬ 
tures it sheltered—men and women who had begun to 
shiver, and whose tense white faces stared with increasing 
anxiety into the mysterious darkness of the night that 
hung like a sable curtain ten feet from the car windows. 

For three hours those faces had peered out into the 
night. Many of the prisoners in the snowbound coaches 
had enjoyed the experience somewhat at first, for there is 
3 


4 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

pleasing and indefinable thrill to unexpected adventure, 
and this, for a brief spell, had been adventure de luxe. 
There had been warmth and light, men’s laughter, wo¬ 
men’s voices, and children’s play. But the loudest jester 
among the men was now silent, huddled deep in his great 
coat; and the young woman who had clapped her hands in 
silly ecstasy when it was announced that the train was 
snowbound was weeping and shivering by turns. It was 
cold—so cold that the snow which came sweeping and 
swirling with the wind was like granite-dust; it clicked , 
clicked , clicked against the glass—a bombardment of untold 
billions of infinitesimal projectiles fighting to break in. 
In the edge of the forest it was probably forty degrees 
below zero. Within the coaches there still remained some 
little warmth. The burning lamps radiated it and the 
presence of many people added to it. But it was cold, 
and growing colder. A gray coating of congealed breath 
covered the car windows. A few men had given their 
outer coats to women and children. These men looked 
most frequently at their watches. The adventure de 
luxe was becoming serious. t 

For the twentieth time a passing train-man was asked 
the same question. 

“The good Lord only knows,” he growled down into 
the face of the young woman whose prettiness would have 
enticed the most chivalrous attention from him earlier 
in the evening. “Engine and tender been gone three 
hours and the divisional point only twenty miles up the 
line. Should have been back with help long ago. Hell, 
ain’t it?” 

The young woman did not reply, but her round mouth 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 5 

formed a quick and silent approbation of his final re¬ 
mark. 

Three hours!” the train-man continued his growling 
as he went on with his lantern. “That’s the hell o’ rail¬ 
roading it along the edge of the Arctic. When you git 
snowed in you’re snowed in , an’ there ain’t no two ways 
about it!” 

He paused at the smoking compartment, thrust in his 
head for a moment, passed on and slammed the door of 
the car after him as he went into the next coach. 

In that smoking compartment there were two men, 
facing each other across the narrow space between the 
two seats. They had not looked up when the trainman 
thrust in his head. They seemed, as one leaned over 
toward the other, wholly oblivious of the storm. 

It was the older man who bent forward. He was about 
fifty. The hand that rested for a moment on David 
Raine’s knee was red and knotted. It was the hand of a 
man who had lived his fife in struggling with the wilder¬ 
ness. And the face, too, was of such a man; a face 
coloured and toughened by the tannin of wind and bliz¬ 
zard and hot northern sun, with eyes cobwebbed about 
by a myriad of fine lines that spoke of years spent under 
the strain of those things. He was not a large man. He 
was shorter than David Raine. There was a slight 
droop to his shoulders. Yet about him there was a 
strength, a suppressed energy ready to act, a zestful eager¬ 
ness for life and its daily mysteries which the other and 
younger man did not possess. Throughout many thou¬ 
sands of square miles of the great northern wilderness this 
older man was known as Father Roland, the Missioner. 


6 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


His companion was not more than thirty-eight. Per¬ 
haps he was a year or two younger. It may be that the 
wailing of the wind outside, the strange voices that were 
in it and the chilling gloom of their little compartment 
made of him a more striking contrast to Father Roland 
than he would have been under other conditions. His 
eyes were a clear and steady gray as they met Father 
Roland’s. They were eyes that one could not easily 
forget. Except for his eyes he was like a man who had 
been sick, and was still sick. The Missioner had made 
his own guess. And now, with his hand on the other’s 
knee, he said: 

“And you say—that you are afraid—for this friend 
of yours?” 

David Raine nodded his head. Lines deepened a little 
about his mouth. 

“Yes, I am afraid.” For a moment he turned to the 
night. A fiercer volley of the little snow demons beat 
against the window, as though his pale face just beyond 
their reach stirred them to greater fury. “I have a most 
disturbing inclination to worry about him,” he added, and 
shrugged his shoulders slightly. 

He faced Father Roland again. 

“Did you ever hear of a man losing himself?” he asked. 
“I don’t mean in the woods, or in a desert, or by going mad. 
I mean in the other way—heart, body, soul; losing one’s 
grip, you might call it, until there was no earth to stand 
on. Did you?” 

“Yes—many years ago—I knew of a man who lost 
himself in that way,” replied the Missioner, straightening 
in his seat. “But he found himself again. And this 


7 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

friend of yours? I am interested. This is the first time 
in three years that I have been down to the edge of civili¬ 
zation, and what you have to tell will be different—vastly 
different from what I know. If you are betraying nothing 
would you mind telling me his story?” 

“It is not a pleasant story,” warned the younger man, 
“and on such a night as this-” 

“It may be that one can see more clearly into the 
depths of misfortune and tragedy,” interrupted the Mis- 
sioner quietly. 

A faint flush rose into David Raine’s pale face. There 
was something of nervous eagerness in the clasp of his 
fingers upon his knees. 

“Of course, there is the woman,” he said. 

“Yes—of course—the woman.” 

“Sometimes I haven’t been quite sure whether this man 
worshipped the woman or the woman’s beauty,” David 
went on, with a strange glow in his eyes. “He loved 
beauty. And this woman was beautiful, almost too beau¬ 
tiful for the good of one’s soul, I guess. And he must 
have loved her, for when she went out of his life it was as if 
he had sunk into a black pit out of which he could never 
rise. I have asked myself often if he would have loved 
her if she had been less beautiful—even quite plain, and 
I have answered myself as he answered that question, in 
the affirmative. It was born in him to worship wherever 
he loved at all. Her beauty made a certain sort of com¬ 
pleteness for him. He treasured that. He was proud 
of it. He counted himself the richest man in the world 
because he possessed it. But deep under his worship 
of her beauty he loved her . I am more and more sure of 



8 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


that, and I am equally sure that time will prove it—that 
he will never rise again with his old hope and faith out of 
that black pit into which he sank when he came face to 
face with the realization that there were forces in life— 
in nature perhaps, more potent than his love and his own 
strong will.” 

Father Roland nodded. 

“I understand,” he said, and he sank back farther in 
his corner by the window, so that his face was shrouded 
a little in shadow. “This other man loved a woman, too. 
And she was beautiful. He thought she was the most 
beautiful thing in the world. It is great love that makes 
beauty.” 

“But this woman—my friend’s wife—was so beautiful 
that even the eyes of other women were fascinated by her 
I have seen her when it seemed she must have come fresh 
from the hands of angels; and at first, when my friend was 
the happiest man in the world, he was fond of telling her 
that it must have been the angels who put the colour in 
her face and the wonderful golden fires in her shining hair. 
It wasn’t his love for her that made her beautiful. She 
was beautiful.” 

“And her soul?” softly questioned the shadowed lips of 
the Missioner. 

The other’s hand tightened slowly. 

“In making her the angels forgot a soul, I guess,” he said. 

“Then your friend did not love her.” The Little 
Missioner’s voice was quick and decisive. “There can 
be no love where there is no soul.” 

“That is impossible. He did love her. I know it.” 

“I still disagree with you. Without knowing your 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 9 


friend, I say that he worshipped her beauty. There 
were others who worshipped that same loveliness—others 
who did not possess her, and who would have bartered 
their souls for her had they possessed souls to barter. 
Is that not true?” 

“Yes, there were others. But to understand you must 
have known my friend before he sank down into the pit 
—when he was still a man. He was a great student. 
His fortune was sufficient to give him both time and means 
for the pursuits he loved. He had his great library, and 
adjoining it a laboratory. He wrote books which few 
people read because they were filled with facts and odd 
theories. He believed that the world was very old, and 
that there was less profit for men in discovering new 
luxuries for an artificial civilization than in re-discovering 
a few of the great laws and miracles buried in the dust of 
the past. He believed that the nearer we get to the 
beginning of things, and not the farther we drift, the 
clearer comprehension can we have of earth and sky and 
God, and the meaning of it all. He did not consider it 
an argument for progress that Christ and His disciples 
knew nothing of the telephone, of giant engines run by 
steam, of electricity, or of instruments by which man 
could send messages for thousands of miles through space. 
His theory was that the patriarchs of old held a closer 
touch on the pulse of Life than progress in its present 
forms will ever bring to us. He was not a fanatic. He 
was not a crank. He was young, and filled with enthu¬ 
siasm. He loved children. He wanted to fill his home 
with them. But his wife knew that she was too beau¬ 
tiful for that—and they had none.” 


10 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

He had leaned a little forward, and had pulled his hat 
a trifle over his eyes. There was a moment’s lull in the 
storm, and it was so quiet that each could hear the tick¬ 
ing of Father Roland’s big silver watch. 

Then he said: 

“I don’t know why I tell you all this. Father, unless it 
is to relieve my own mind. There can be no hope that it 
will benefit my friend. And yet it cannot harm him. It 
seems very near to sacrilege to put into words what I 
am going to say about—his wife. Perhaps there were 
extenuating conditions for her. I have tried to convince 
myself of that, just as he tried to believe it. It may be 
that a man who is born into this age must consider him¬ 
self a misfit unless he can tune himself in sympathy with 
its manner of life. He cannot be too critical, I guess. 
If he is to exist in a certain social order of our civilization 
unburdened by great doubts and deep glooms he must 
not shiver when his wife tinkles her champagne glass 
against another. He must learn to appreciate the sinu¬ 
ous beauties of the cabaret dancer, and must train him¬ 
self to take no offence when he sees shimmering wines 
tilted down white throats. lie must train himself to 
many things, just as he trains himself to classical music 
and grand opera. To do these things he must forget, 
as much as he can, the sweet melodies and the sweeter 
women who are sinking into oblivion together. He must 
accept life as a Grand Piano tuned by a new sort of 
Tuning Master, and unless he can dance to its music he is 
a misfit. That is what my friend said to extenuate her. 
She fitted into this kind of life splendidly. He was in 
the other groove. She loved light, laughter, wine, song. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 11 

and excitement. He, the misfit, loved his books, his 
work, and his home. His greatest joy would have been 
to go with her, hand in hand, through some wonderful 
cathedral, pointing out its ancient glories and mysteries 
to her. He wanted aloneness—just they two. Such 
was his idea of love. And she—wanted other things. 
You understand, Father? . . . The thing grew, and 

at last he saw that she was getting away from him. Her 
passion for admiration and excitement became a madness. 
I know, because I saw it. My friend said that it was 
madness, even as he was going mad. And yet he did not 
suspect her. If another had told him that she was un¬ 
clean I am sure he would have killed him. Slowly he 
came to experience the agony of knowing that the woman 
whom he worshipped did not love him. But this did not 
lead him to believe that she could love another—or others. 
Then, one day, he left the city. She went with him to 
the train—his wife. She saw him go. She waved her 
handkerchief at him. And as she stood there she was— 
glorious.” 

Through partly closed eyes the Little Missioner saw 
his shoulders tighten, and a hardness settle about his 
mouth. The voice, too, was changed when it went on. 
It was almost emotionless. 

“It’s sometimes curious how the Chief Arbiter of things 
plays His tricks on men—and women, isn’t it. Father? 
There was trouble on the line ahead, and my friend came 
back. It was unexpected. It was late when he reached 
home, and with his night key he went in quietly, because 
he did not want to awaken her . It was very still in the 
house—until he came to the door of her room. There 


12 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

was a light. He heard voices—very low. He listened. 
He went in.” 

There was a terrible silence. The ticking of Father 
Roland’s big silver watch seemed like the beating of a 
tiny drum. 

“And what happened then, David?” 

“My friend went in,” repeated David. His eyes sought 
Father Roland’s squarely, and he saw the question there. 
“No, he did not kill them,” he said. “He doesn’t know 
what kept him from killing—the man. He was a coward, 
that man. He crawled away like a worm. Perhaps that 
was why my friend spared him. The wonderful part of 
it was that the woman—his wife—was not afraid. She 
stood up in her ravishing dishevelment, with that mantle 
of gold he had worshipped streaming about her to her 
knees, and she laughed ? Yes, she laughed—a mad sort 
of laugh; a laughter of fear, perhaps—but— laughter. 
So he did not kill them. Her laughter—the man’s cow¬ 
ardice—saved them. He turned. He closed the door. 
He left them. He went out into the night.” 

He paused, as though his story was finished. 

“And that is—the end?” asked Father Roland softly. 

“Of his dreams, his hopes, his joy in life—yes, that 
was the end.” 

“But of your friend’s story? What happened after 
that?” 

“A miracle, I think,” replied David hesitatingly, as 
though he could not quite understand what had happened 
after that. “You see, this friend of mine was not of the 
vacillating and irresolute sort. I had always given him 
credit for that—credit for being a man who would measure 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 13 

up to a situation. He was quite an athlete, and enjoyed 
boxing and fencing and swimming. If at any time in his 
life he could have conceived of a situation such as he 
encountered in his wife’s room, he would have lived in a 
moral certainty of killing the man. And when the situa¬ 
tion did come was it not a miracle that he should walk 
out into the night leaving them not only unharmed, 
but together? I ask you, Father—was it not a miracle?” 

Father Roland’s eyes were gleaming strangely under 
the shadow of his broad-brimmed black hat. He merely 
nodded. 

“Of course,” resumed David, “it may be that he was 
too stunned to act. I believe that the laughter —her 
laughter—acted upon him like a powerful drug. In¬ 
stead of plunging him into the passion of a murderous 
desire for vengeance it curiously enough anesthetized his 
emotions. For hours he heard that laughter. I be¬ 
lieve he will never forget it. He wandered the streets all 
that night. It was in New York, and of course he passed 
many people. But he did not see them. When morning 
came he was on Fifth Avenue many miles from his home. 
He wandered downtown in a constantly growing human 
stream whose noise and bustle and many-keyed voice 
acted on him as a tonic. For the first time he asked him¬ 
self what he would do. Stronger and stronger grew the 
desire in him to return, to face again that situation in his 
home. I believe that he would have done this—I be¬ 
lieve that the red blood in him would have meted out its 
own punishment had he not turned just in time, and at 
the right place. He found himself in front of The Little 
Church Around the Corner, nestling in its hiding-place 


14 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

just off the Avenue. He remembered its restful quiet, 
the coolness of its aisles and alcoves. He was exhausted, 
and he went in. He sat down facing the chancel, and 
as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he saw that 
the broad, low dais in front of the organ was banked with 
great masses of hydrangeas. There had been a wedding, 
probably the evening before. My friend told me of the 
thickening that came in his throat, of the strange, terrible 
throb in his heart as he sat there alone—the only soul in 
the church—and stared at those hydrangeas. Hydrangeas 
had been their own wedding flower. Father. And 
then-” 

For the first time there was something like a break Ul 
the younger man’s voice. 

“My friend thought he was alone,” he went on. “But 
some one had come out like a shadow beyond the chancel 
railing, and of a sudden, beginning wonderfully low and 
sweet, the great organ began to fill the church with its 
melody. The organist, too, thought he was alone. He 
was a little, old man, his shoulders thin and drooped, his 
hair white. But in his soul there must have been a great 
love and a great peace. He played something low and 
sweet. When he had finished he rose and went away as 
quietly as he had come, and for a long time after that my 
friend sat there—alone. Something new was born in 
him, something which I hope will grow and comfort him 
in the years to come. When he went out into the city 
again the sun was shining. He did not go home. He 
did not see the woman—his wife—again. He has never 
seen her since that night when she stood up in her dis¬ 
hevelled beauty and laughed at him. Even the divorce 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 15 


proceedings did not bring them together. I believe that 
he treated her fairly. Through his attorneys he turned 
over to her a half of what he possessed. Then he went 
away. That was a year ago. In that year I know that 
he has fought desperately to bring himself back into his 
old health of mind and body, and I am quite sure that he 
has failed.” 

He paused, his story finished. He drew the brim of his 
hat lower over his eyes, and then he rose to his feet. His 
build was slim and clean-cut. He was perhaps five feet 
ten inches in height, which was four inches taller than 
the Little Missioner. His shoulders were of good breadth, 
his waist and hips of an athletic slimness. But his clothes 
hung with a certain looseness. His hands were unnat¬ 
urally thin, and in his face still hovered the shadows of 
sickness and of mental suffering. 

Father Roland stood beside him now with eyes that 
shone with a deep understanding. Under the sputter 
of the lamp above their heads the two men clasped hands, 
and the Little Missioner’s grip was like the grip of iron. 

“David, I’ve preached a strange code through the 
wilderness for many a long year,” he said, and his voice 
was vibrant with a strong emotion. “I’m not Catholic 
and I’m not Church of England. I’ve got no religion 
that wears a name. I’m simply Father Roland, and all 
these years I’ve helped to bury the dead in the forest, an’ 
nurse the sick, an’ marry the living, an’ it may be that 
I’ve learned one thing better than most of you who live 
down in civilization. And that’s how to find yourself 
when you’re down an’ out. Boy, will you come with 
me?” 


16 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


Their eyes met. A fiercer gust of the storm beat 
against the windows. They could hear the wind wailing 
in the trees outside. 

“It was your story that you told me,” said Father 
Roland, his voice barely above a whisper. “She was 
your wife, David?” 

It was very still for a few moments. Then came the 
reply: “Yes, she was my wife. . . .” 

Suddenly David freed his hand from the Little Mis¬ 
sioned clasp. He had stopped something that was 
almost like a cry on his lips. He pulled his hat still 
lower over his eyes and went through the door out into 
the main part of the coach. 

Father Roland did not follow. Some of the ruddiness 
had gone from his cheeks, and as he stood facing the door 
through which David had disappeared a smouldering fire 
began to burn far back in his eyes. After a few moments 
this fire died out, and his face was gray and haggard as 
he sat down again in his corner. His hands unclenched. 
With a great sigh his head drooped forward on his chest, 
and for a long time he sat thus, his eyes and face lost in 
shadow. One would not have known that he was breath¬ 
ing. 


CHAPTER II 


H ALF a dozen times that night David had walked 
from end to end of the five snow-bound coaches 
that made up the Transcontinental. He believed 
that for him it was an act of Providence that had delayed 
the train. Otherwise a sleeping car would have been 
picked up at the next divisional point, and he would not 
have unburdened himself to Father Roland. They 
would not have sat up until that late hour in the smoking 
compartment, and this strange little man of the forest 
would not have told him the story of a lonely cabin up 
on the edge of the Barrens—a story of strange pathos and 
human tragedy that had, in some mysterious way, unsealed 
his own lips. David had kept to himself the shame and 
heartbreak of his own affliction since the day he had 
been compelled to tell it, coldly and without visible 
emotion, to gain his own freedom. He had meant to 
keep it to himself always. And of a sudden it had all 
come out. He was not sorry. He was glad. He was 
amazed at the change in himself. That day had been a 
terrible day for him. He could not get her out of his 
mind. Now a depressing hand seemed to have lifted 
itself from his heart. He was quick to understand. His 
story had not fallen upon ears eager with sensual curiosity. 
He had met a man , and from the soul of that man there 
had reached out to him the spirit of a deep and comfort- 
17 


18 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

ing strength. He would have revolted at compassion, 
and words of pity would have shamed him. Father 
Roland had given voice to neither of these. But the 
grip of his hand had been like the grip of an iron man. 

In the third coach David sat down in an empty seat. 
For the first time in many months there was a thrill of 
something in his blood which he could not analyze. What 
had the Little Missioner meant when, with that wonderful 
grip of his knotted hand, he had said, “I’ve learned how 
a man can find himself when he’s down and out”? And 
what had he meant when he added, “Will you come with 
me”? Go with him? Where? 

There came a sudden crash of the storm against the 
window, a shrieking blast of wind and snow, and David 
stared into the night. He could see nothing. It was a 
black chaos outside. But he could hear. He could hear 
the wailing and the moaning of the wind in the trees, and 
he almost fancied that it was not darkness alone that shut 
out his vision, but the thick walls of the forest. 

Was that what Father Roland had meant? Had he 
asked him to go with him into that ? 

His face touched the cold glass. He stared harder. 
That morning Father Roland had boarded the train at a 
wilderness station and had taken a seat beside him. 
They had become acquainted. And later the Little 
Missioner had told him how those vast forests reached 
without a break for hundreds of miles into the mysterious 
North. He loved them, even as they lay cold and white 
outside the windows. There was gladness in his voice 
when he had said that he was going back into them. 
They were a part of his world—a world of “mystery and 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 19 

savage glory” he had called it, stretching for a thousand 
miles to the edge of the Arctic, and fifteen hundred miles 
from Hudson’s Bay to the western mountains. And 
to-night he had said, “Will you come with me?” 

David’s pulse quickened. A thousand little snow 
demons beat in his face to challenge his courage. The 
wind swept down, as if enraged at the thought in his 
mind, and scooped up volley after volley of drifting snow 
and hurled them at him. There was only the thin glass 
between. It was like the defiance of a living thing. It 
threatened him. It dared him. It invited him out like 
a great bully, with a brawling show of fists. He had 
always been more or less pusillanimous in the face of 
winter. He disliked cold. He hated snow. But this 
that beat and shrieked at him outside the window had 
set something stirring strangely within him. It was a 
desire, whimsical and undecided at first, to thrust his 
face out into that darkness and feel the sting of the wind 
and snow. It was Father Roland’s world. And Father 
Roland had invited him to enter it. That was the curious 
part of the situation, as it was impressed upon him as he 
sat with his face flattened against the window. The 
Little Missioner had invited him, and the night was daring 
him. For a single moment the incongruity of it all made 
him forget himself, and he laughed—a chuckling, half- 
broken, and out-of-tune sort of laugh. It was the first 
time in a year that he had forgotten himself anywhere 
near to a point resembling laughter, and in the sudden 
and inexplicable spontaneity of it he was startled. He 
turned quickly, as though some one at his side had laughed 
and he was about to demand an explanation. He looked 


20 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

across the aisle and his eyes met squarely the eyes of a 
woman. 

He saw nothing but the eyes at first. They were big, 
dark, questing eyes—eyes that had in them a hunting 
look, as though they hoped to find in his face the answer 
to a great question. Never in his fife had he seen eyes that 
were so haunted by a great unrest, or that held in their 
lustrous depths the smouldering glow of a deeper grief. 
Then the face added itself to the eyes. It was not a 
young face. The woman was past forty. But this age 
did not impress itself over a strange and appealing beauty 
in her countenance which was like the beauty of a flower 
whose petals are falling. Before David had seen more 
than this she turned her eyes from him slowly and doubt¬ 
fully, as if not quite convinced that she had found what 
she sought, and faced the darkness beyond her own side 
of the car. 

David was puzzled, and he looked at her with still 
deeper interest. Her seat was turned so that it was 
facing him across the aisle, three seats ahead, and he 
could look at her without conspicuous effort or rudeness. 
Her hood had slipped down and hung by its long scarf 
about her shoulders. She leaned toward the window, 
and as she stared out, her chin rested in the cup of her 
hand. He noticed that her hand was thin, and that 
there was a shadowy hollow in the white pallor of her 
cheek. Her hair was heavy and done in thick coils that 
glowed dully in the lamplight. It was a deep brown, almost 
black, shot through with little silvery threads of gray. 

For a few moments David withdrew his gaze, sub¬ 
consciously ashamed of the directness of his scrutiny,. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 21 


But after a little his eyes drifted back to her. Her head 
was sunk forward a little, he caught now a pathetic 
droop of her shoulders, and he fancied that he saw a little 
shiver run through her. Just as before he had felt the 
desire to thrust his face out into the night, he felt now an 
equally unaccountable impulse to speak to her and ask 
her if he could in any way be of service to her. But he 
could see no excuse for this presumptuousness in himself. 
If she was in distress it was not of a physical sort for 
which he might have suggested his services as a remedy. 
She was neither hungry nor cold, for there was a basket 
at her side in which he had a glimpse of broken bits of 
food; and at her back, draped over the seat, was a heavy 
beaver-skin coat. 

He rose to his feet with the intention of returning to 
the smoking compartment in which he had left Father 
Roland. His movement seemed to rouse the woman. 
Again her dark eyes met his own. They looked straight 
up at him as he stood in the aisle, and he stopped. Her 
lips trembled. 

“Are you . . . acquainted . . . between here 

and Lac Seul?” she asked. 

Her voice had in it the same haunting mystery that he 
had seen in her eyes, the same apprehension, the same 
hope, as though some curious and indefinable instinct 
was telling her that in this stranger she was very near 
to the thing which she was seeking. 

“I am a stranger,” he said. “This is the first time I 
have ever been in this country.” 

She sank back, the look of hope in her face dying out 
like a passing flash. 


22 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“I thank you,” she murmured. “I thought perhaps 
you might know of a man whom I am seeking—a man by 
the name of Michael O’Doone.” 

She did not expect him to speak again. She drew her 
heavy coat about her and turned her face toward the 
window. There was nothing that he could say, nothing 
that he could do, and he went back to Father Roland. 

He was in the last coach when a sound came to him 
faintly. It was too sharp for the wailing of the storm. 
Others heard it and grew suddenly erect, with tense and 
listening faces. The young woman with the round mouth 
gave a little gasp. A man pacing back and forth in the 
aisle stopped as if at the point of a bayonet. 

It came again. 

The heavy-jowled man who had taken the adventure 
as a jest at first, and who had rolled himself in his great 
coat like a hibernating woodchuck, unloosed his voice in a 
rumble of joy. 

“It’s the whistle!” he announced. “The damned 
thing’s coming at last!” 


CHAPTER IH 


D AVID came up quietly to the door of the smoking 
compartment where he had left Father Roland. 
The Little Missioner was huddled in his corner 
near the window. His head hung heavily forward and 
the shadows of his black Stetson concealed his face. 
He was apparently asleep. His hands, with their strangely 
developed joints and fingers, lay loosely upon his knees. 
For fully half a minute David looked at him without 
moving or making a sound, and as he looked, something 
warm and living seemed to reach out from the lonely 
figure of the wilderness preacher that filled him with a 
strangely new feeling of companionship. Again he made 
no effort to analyze the change in himself; he accepted it 
as one of the two or three inexplicable phenomena this 
night and the storm had produced for him, and was 
chiefly concerned in the fact that he was no longer op¬ 
pressed by that torment of aloneness which had been 
a part of his nights and days for so many months. He 
was about to speak when he made up his mind not to 
disturb the other. So certain was he that Father Roland 
was asleep that he drew away from the door on the tips 
of his toes and reentered the coach. 

He did not stop in the first or second car, though there 
were plenty of empty seats and people were rousing them¬ 
selves into more cheerful activity. He passed through 


24 THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 


one and then the other to the third coach, and sat down 
when he came to the seat he had formerly occupied. He 
did not immediately look at the woman across the aisle. 
He did not want her to suspect that he had come back 
for that purpose. When his eyes did seek her in a casual 
sort of way he was disappointed. 

She was almost covered in her coat. He caught only 
the gleam of her thick, dark hair, and the shape of one 
slim hand, white as paper in the lampglow. He knew 
that she was not asleep, for he saw her shoulders move, 
and the hand shifted its position to hold the coat closer 
about her. The whistling of the approaching engine, 
which could be heard distinctly now, had no apparent 
effect on her. For ten minutes he sat staring at all he 
could see of her—the dark glow of her hair and the one 
ghostly white hand. He moved, he shuffled his feet, he 
coughed; he made sure she knew he was there, but she 
did not look up. He was sorry that he had not brought 
Father Roland with him in the first place, for he was 
certain that if the Little Missioner had seen the grief and 
the despair in her eyes—the hope almost burned out— 
he would have gone to her and said things which he had 
found it impossible to say when the opportunity had come 
to him. He rose again from his seat as the powerful snow- 
engine and its consort coupled on to the train. The shock 
almost flung him off his feet. Even then she did not raise 
her head. 

A second time he returned to the smoking compartment 

Father Roland was no longer huddled down in his 
corner. He was on his feet, his hands thrust deep down 
into his trousers pockets, and he was whistling softly as 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 25 

David came in. His hat lay on the seat. It was the 
first time David had seen his round, rugged, weather- 
reddened face without the big Stetson. He looked younger 
and yet older; his face, as David saw it there in the lamp- 
glow, had something in the ruddy glow and deeply lined 
strength of it that was almost youthful. But his thick, 
shaggy hair was very gray. The train had begun to move. 
He turned to the window for a moment, and then looked 
at David. 

“We are under way,” he said. “Very soon I will be 
getting off.” 

David sat down. 

“It is some distance beyond the divisional point ahead 
■*—this cabin where you get off?” he asked. 

“Yes, twenty or twenty-five miles. There is nothing 
but a cabin and two or three log outbuildings there— 
where Thoreau, the Frenchman, has his fox pens, as I 
told you. It is not a regular stop, but the train will slow 
down to throw off my dunnage and give me an easy jump. 
My dogs and Indian are with Thoreau.” 

“And from there—from Thoreau’s—it is a long distance 
to the place you call home?” 

The Little Missioner rubbed his hands in a queer rasping 
way. The movement of those rugged hands and the 
curious, chuckling laugh that accompanied it, radiated a 
sort of cheer. They were expressions of more than satis¬ 
faction. “It’s a great many miles to my own cabin, but 
it’s home—all home—after I get into the forests. My 
cabin is at the lower end of God’s Lake, three hundred 
miles by dogs and sledge from Thoreau’s—three hundred 
miles as straight north as a niskuk flies.” 


26 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“A niskuk ?” said David. 

“Yes—a gray goose.” 

“Don’t you have crows?” 

“A few; but they’re as crooked in flight as they are in 
morals. They’re scavengers, and they hang down pretty 
close to the line of rail—close to civilization, where there’s 
a lot of scavenging to be done, you know.” 

For the second time that night David found a laugh on 
his lips. 

“Then—you don’t like civilization?” 

“My heart is in the Northland,” replied Father Roland v 
and David saw a sudden change in the other’s face, a 
dying out of the light in his eyes, a tenseness that came 
and went like a flash at the corners of his mouth. In 
that same moment he saw the Missioner’s hand tighten, 
and the fingers knot themselves curiously and then slowly 
relax. 

One of these hands dropped on David’s shoulder, and 
Father Roland became the questioner. 

“You have been thinking, since you left me a little 
while ago?” he asked. 

“Yes. I came back. But you were asleep/’ 

“I haven’t been asleep. I have been awake every 
minute. I thought once that I heard a movement at 
the door but when I looked up there was no one there. 
You told me to-day that you were going west—to the 
British Columbia mountains?” 

David nodded. Father Roland sat down beside him. 

“Of course you didn’t tell me why you were going,” 
he went on. “I have made my own guess since you told 
me about the woman, David. Probably you will never 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 2? 

know just why your story has struck so deeply home with 
me and why it seemed to make you more a son to me 
than a stranger. I have guessed that in going west 
you are simply wandering. You are fighting in a vain 
and foolish sort of way to run away from something. 
Isn’t that it? You are running away—trying to escape 
the one thing in the whole wide world that you cannot 
lose by flight—and that’s memory. You can think just 
as hard in Japan or the South Sea Islands as you can on 
Fifth Avenue in New York, and sometimes the farther 
away you get the more maddening your thoughts be¬ 
come. It isn’t travel you want, David. It’s blood —red 
blood. And for putting blood into you, and courage, and 
joy of just living and breathing, there’s nothing on the 
face of the earth like —that ! ” 

He reached an arm past David and pointed to the night 
beyond the car window. 

“You mean the storm, and the snow-” 

“Yes; storm, and snow, and sunshine, and forests^ 
the tens of thousands of miles of our Northland that 
you’ve seen only the edges of. That’s what I mean* 
But, first of all”—and again the Little Missioner rubbed 
his hands—“first of all, I’m thinking of the supper that’s 
waiting for us at Thoreau’s. Will you get off and have 
supper with me at the Frenchman’s, David? After that, 
if you decide not to go up to God’s Lake with me, Thoreau 
can bring you and your luggage back to the station with 
his dog team. Such a supper—or breakfast—it will be! 
I can smell it now, for I know Thoreau—his fish, his 
birds, the tenderest steaks in the forests! I can hear 
Thoreau cursing because the train hasn’t come, and VM 


28 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


wager he’s got fish and caribou tenderloin and partridges 
just ready for a final turn in the roaster. What do you 
say? Will you get off with me?” 

“It is a tempting offer to a hungry man, Father.” 

The Little Missioner chuckled elatedly. 

“Hunger!—that’s the real medicine of the gods, David, 
when the belt isn’t drawn too tight. If I want to know 
the nature and quality of a man I ask about his stomach. 
Did you ever know a man who loved to eat who wasn’t 
of a pretty decent sort? Did you ever know of a man 
who loved pie—who’d go out of his way to get pie—that 
didn’t have a heart in him bigger than a pumpkin? I 
guess you didn’t. If a man’s got a good stomach he isn’t 
a grouch, and he won’t stick a knife into your back; but 
if he eats from habit—or necessity—he isn’t a beautiful 
character in the eyes of nature, and there’s pretty sure 
to be a cog loose somewhere in his makeup. I’m a grub- 
scientist, David. I warn you of that before we get off 
at Thoreau’s. I love to eat, and the Frenchman knows it. 
That’s why I can smell things in that cabin, forty miles 
away.” 

He was rubbing his hands briskly and his face radiated 
such joyous anticipation as he talked that David uncon¬ 
sciously felt the spirit of his enthusiasm. He had gripped 
one of Father Roland’s hands and was pumping it up and 
down almost before he realized what he was doing. 

“I’ll get off with you at Thoreau’s,” he exclaimed, 
“and later, if I feel as I do now, and you still want my 
company, I’ll go on with you into the north country!” 

A slight flush rose into his thin cheeks and his eyes 
shone with a freshly lighted enthusiasm. As Father 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 29 

Roland saw the change in him his hands closed over 
David’s. 

“I knew you had a splendid stomach in you from the 
moment you finished telling me about the woman,” he 
cried exultantly. “I knew it, David. And I do want 
your company—I want it as I never wanted the company 
of another man!” 

“That is the strange part of it,” replied David, a slight 
quiver in his voice. He drew away his hands suddenly 
and with a jerk brought himself to his feet. “ Good God 1 
look at me!” he cried. “I am a wreck, physically. It 
would be a lie if you told me I am not. See these hands— 
these arms! I’m down and out. I’m weak as a do&, 
and the stomach you speak of is a myth. I haven’t 
eaten a square meal in a year. Why do you want me as 
a companion? Why do you think it would be a pleasure 
for you to drag a decrepit misfit like myself up into a 
country like yours? Is it because of your—your code 
of faith? Is it because you think you may save a 
soul?” 

He was breathing deeply. As he excoriated himself 
and bared his weakness the hot blood crept slowly into 
his face. 

“Why do you want me to go?” he demanded. “Why 
don’t you ask some man with red blood in his veins and 
a heart that hasn’t been burned out? Why have you 
asked me?” 

Father Roland made as if to speak, and then caught 
himself. Again for a passing flash there came that mys¬ 
terious change in him, a sudden dying out of the enthu¬ 
siasm in his eyes, and a grayness in his face that came 


30 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

and went like a shadow of pain. In another moment he 
was saying: 

“ I’m not playing the part of the good Samaritan, David. 
I’ve got a personal and a selfish reason for wanting you 
with me. It may be possible—just possible, I say— 
that I need you even more than you will need me.” He 
held out his hand. “Let me have your checks and I’ll 
go ahead to the baggage car and arrange to have your 
dunnage thrown off with mine at the Frenchman’s.” 

David gave him the checks, and sat down after he had 
gone. He began to realize that, for the first time in many 
months, he was taking a deep and growing interest in 
matters outside his own life. The night and its happen¬ 
ings had kindled a strange fire within him, and the warmth 
of this fire ran through his veins and set his body and his 
brain tingling curiously. New forces were beginning to 
fight his own malady. As he sat alone after Father 
Roland had gone, his mind had dragged itself away from 
the East; he thought of a woman, but it was the womau 
in the third coach back. Her wonderful eyes haunted him 
—their questing despair, the strange pain that seemed to 
burn like glowing coals in their depths. He had seen not 
only misery and hopelessness in them; he had seen tragedy; 
and they troubled him. He made up his mind to tell 
Father Roland about her when he returned from the 
baggage car, and take him to her. 

And who was Father Roland? For the first time he 
asked himself the question. There was something of 
mystery about the Little Missioner that he found as 
strange and unanswerable as the thing he had seen in 
the eyes of the woman in the third car back. Father 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 31 

Roland had not been asleep when he looked in and saw 
him hunched down in his corner near the window, just as 
a little later he had seen the woman crumpled down in 
hers. It was as if the same oppressing hand had been 
upon them in those moments. And why had Father 
Roland asked him of all men to go with him as a comrade 
into the North? Following this he asked himself the still 
more puzzling question: Why had he accepted the in¬ 
vitation? 

He stared out into the night, as if that night held an 
answer for him. He had not noticed until now that the 
storm had ceased its beating against the window. It was 
not so black outside. With his face close to the glass he 
could make out the dark wall of the forest. From the 
rumble of the trucks under him he knew that the two 
engines were making good time. He looked at his watch. 
It was a quarter of twelve. They had been travelling 
for half an hour and he figured that the divisional point 
ahead would be reached by midnight. It seemed a very 
short time after that when he heard the tiny bell in 
his watch tinkle off the hour of twelve. The last strokes 
were drowned in a shrill blast of the engine whistle, and a 
moment later he caught the dull glow of lights in the 
hollow of a wide curve the train was making. 

Father Roland had told him the train would wait at 
this point fifteen minutes, and even now he heard the 
clanging of handbells announcing the fact that hot coffee, 
sandwiches, and ready-prepared suppers were awaiting 
the half-starved passengers. The trucks grated harshly, 
the whirring groan of the air-brakes ran under him like 
a great sigh, and suddenly he was looking down into the 


32 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

face of a pop-eyed man who was clanging a bell, with all 
the strength of his right arm, under his window, and who, 
with this labour, was emitting a husky din of “Supper 
—supper ’ot an’ ready at the Royal ” in his vain effort to 
drown the competition of a still more raucous voice that 
was bellowing: “ ’Ot steaks an ’ liver’n onions at the Queen 
Alexandry!” As David made no movement the man 
under his window stretched up his neck and yelled a 
personal invitation. “W’y don’t you come out and eat, 
old chap? You’ve got fifteen minutes an’ mebby ’arf 
an ’our; supper—supper ’ot an’ ready at the Royal!” 
Up and down the length of the dimly lighted platform 
David heard that clangor of bells, and as if determined to 
capture his stomach or die, the pop-eyed man never 
moved an inch from his window, while behind him there 
jostled and hurried an eager and steadily growing crowd 
of hungry people. 

David thought again of the woman in the third coach 
back. Was she getting off here, he wondered? He went 
to the door of the smoking compartment and waited 
another half minute for Father Roland. It was quite 
evident that his delay was occasioned by some difficulty 
in the baggage car, a difficulty which perhaps his own 
presence might help to straighten out. He hesitated 
between the thought of joining the Missioner and the 
stronger impulse to go back into the third coach. He 
was conscious of a certain feeling of embarrassment as 
he returned for the third t me to look at her. He was not 
anxious for her to see him again unless Father Roland was 
with him. His hesitancy, if it was not altogether em¬ 
barrassment, was caused by the fear that she might quit® 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 33 


naturally regard his interest in a wrong light. He was 
especially sensitive upon that point, and had always 
been. The fact that she was not a young woman, and 
*hat he had seen her dark hair finely threaded with gray, 
made no difference with him in his peculiarly chivalric 
conception of man’s attitude toward woman. He did 
not mean to impress himself upon her; this time he merely 
wanted to see whether she had roused herself, or had left 
the car. At least this was the trend of his mental argu* 
ment as he entered the third coach. 

The car was empty. The woman was gone. Even 
the old man who had hobbled in on crutches at the last 
station had hobbled out again in response to the clanging 
bells. When he came to the seat where the woman had 
been, David paused, and would have turned back had 
he not chanced to look out through the window. He 
was just in time to catch the quick upturn of a passing 
face. It was her face. She saw him and recognized 
him; she seemed for a moment to hesitate; her eyes were 
filled again with that haunting fire; her lips trembled 
as if about to speak; and then, like a mysterious shadow, 
she drifted out of his vision into darkness. 

For a space he remained in his bent and staring atti¬ 
tude, trying to pierce the gloom into which she had dis¬ 
appeared. As he drew back from the window, wondering 
what she must think of him, his eyes fell to the seat 
where she had been sitting, and he saw that she had 
left something behind. 

It was a very thin package, done up in a bit of news¬ 
paper and tied with a red string. He picked it up and 
turned it over in his hands. It was five or six inches in 


34 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

width and perhaps eight in length, and was not more than 
half an inch in thickness. The newspaper in which the 
object was wrapped was worn until the print was almost 
obliterated. 

Again he looked out through the window. Was it a 
trick of his eyes, he wondered, or did he see once more 
that pale and haunting face in the gloom just beyond the 
lampglow? His fingers closed a little tighter upon the 
thin packet in his hand. At least he had found an ex¬ 
cuse; if she was still there—if he could find her—he had 
an adequate apology for going to her. She had forgotten 
something; it was simply a matter of courtesy on his part 
to return it. As he alighted into the half foot of snow on 
the platform he could have given no other reason for his 
action. His mind could not clarify itself; it had no co¬ 
hesiveness of purpose or of emotion at this particular 
juncture. It was as if a strange and magnetic undertow 
were drawing him after her. And he obeyed the impulse. 
He began seeking for her, with the thin packet in his hand. 


CHAPTER IV 


D AVID followed where he fancied he had last seen 
the woman’s face and caught himself just in time 
to keep from pitching over the edge of the plat¬ 
form. Beyond that there was a pit of blackness. Surely 
she had not gone there. 

Two or three of the bells were still clanging, but with 
abated enthusiasm; from the dimly lighted platform, 
grayish-white in the ghostly flicker of the oil lamps, the 
crowd of hungry passengers was ebbing swiftly in its 
quest of food and drink; a last half-hearted bawling of 
the virtue to be found in the “hot steak an ’ liver’n onions 
at the Royal Alexandry” gave way to a comforting silence 
—a silence broken only by a growing clatter of dishes, 
the subdued wheezing of the engines, and the raucous 
voice of a train-man telling the baggage-man that the 
hump between his shoulders was not a head but a knot 
kindly tied there by his Creator to keep him from un¬ 
ravelling. Even the promise of a fight—at least of a 
blow or two delivered in the gray gloom of the baggage¬ 
man’s door—did not turn David from his quest. When 
he returned, a few minutes later, two or three sympathetic 
friends were nursing the baggage-man back into conscious¬ 
ness. He was about to pass the group when some one 
gripped his arm, and a familiar and joyous chuckle 
sounded in his ear. Father Roland stood beside him. 


35 


36 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“Dear Father in Heaven, but it was a terrible blow, 
David!” cried the Little Missioner, his face dancing in 
the flare of the baggage-room lamps. “It was a tremen¬ 
dous blow—straight out from his shoulders like a battering 
ram, and hard as rock! It put him to sleep like a baby. 
Did you see it?” 

“I didn’t,” said David, staring at the other in amaze¬ 
ment. 

i l “He deserved it,” explained Father Roland. “I love 
to see a good, clean blow when it’s delivered in the right, 
David. I’ve seen the time when a hard fist was worth 
more than a preacher and his prayers.” He was chuckling 
delightedly as they turned back to the train. “The 
baggage is arranged for,” he added. “They’ll put us off 
together at the Frenchman’s.” 

David had slipped the thin packet into his pocket. 
He no longer felt so keenly the desire to tell Father Roland 
about the woman—at least not at the present time. His 
quest had been futile. The woman had disappeared as 
completely as though she had actually floated away into 
that pit of darkness beyond the far end of the platform. 
He had drawn but one conclusion. This place—Graham 
—was her home; undoubtedly friends had been at the 
station to meet her; even now she might be telling them, 
or a husband, or a grown-up son, of the strange fellow 
who had stared at her in such a curious fashion. Disap¬ 
pointment in not finding her had brought a reaction. He 
had an inward and uncomfortable feeling of having been 
very silly, and of having allowed his imagination to get 
the better of his common sense. He had persuaded 
himself to believe that she had been in very great dis- 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 37 

tress. He had acted honestly and with rhivalric intentions. 
And yet, after what had passed between him and Father 
Roland in the smoking compartment—and in view of his 
failure to establish a proof of his own convictions—he was 
determined to keep this particular event of the night to 
himself. 

A loud voice began to announce that the moment of 
departure had arrived, and as the passengers began 
scrambling back into their coaches, Father Roland led the 
way to the baggage car. 

“They’re going to let us ride with the dunnage so there 
won’t be any mistake or time lost when we get to Tho- 
reau’s,” he said. 

They climbed up into the warm and lighted car, and 
after the baggage-man in charge had given them a sour 
nod of recognition the first thing that David noticed was 
his own and Father Roland’s property stacked up near 
the door. His own belongings were a steamer trunk and 
two black morocco bags, while Father Roland’s share of 
the pile consisted mostly of boxes and bulging gunny sacks 
that must have weighed close to half a ton. Near the pile 
was a pair of scales, shoved back against the wall of the 
car. David laughed queerly as he nodded toward them. 
They gave him a rather satisfying inspiration. With 
them he could prove the incongruity of the partnership 
that had already begun to exist between him and the 
Missioner. He weighed himself, with Father Roland 
looking on. The scales balanced at 132. 

“And I’m five feet nine in height,” he said, disgustedly; 
“it should be 160. You see where I’m at!” 

“I knew a 200-pound pig once that worried himself 


38 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


down to ninety because the man who kept him also kept 
skunks,” replied Father Roland, with his odd chuckle. 
“Next to small-pox and a bullet through your heart, worry 
is about the blackest, man-killingest thing on earth, David. 
See that bag? ” 

He pointed to one of the bulging gunny sacks. 

“That’s the antidote,” he said. “It’s the best medicine 
I know of in the grub line for a man who’s lost his grip. 
There’s the making of three men in that sack.” 

“What is it?” asked David, curiously. 

The Missioner bent over to examine a card attached to 
the neck of the bag. 

“To be perfectly accurate it contains 110 pounds of 
beans,” he answered. 

“ Beans! Great Heavens! I loathe them! ” 

“So do most down-and-outs,” affirmed Father Roland, 
cheerfully. “That’s one reason for the peculiar psycho¬ 
logical value of beans. They begin to tell you when you’re 
getting weaned away from a lobster palate and a stuffed- 
crab stomach, and when you get to the point where you 
want ’em on your regular bill of fare you’ll find more fun 
in chopping down a tree than in going to a grand opera. 
But the beans must be cooked right, David—browned like 
a nut, juicy to the heart of ’em, and seasoned alongside a 
broiling duck or partridge, or a tender rabbit. Ah!” 

The Little Missioner rubbed his hands ecstatically. 

David’s rejoinder, if one was on his lips, was interrupted 
by a violent cursing. The train was well under way, and 
the baggage-man had sat down to a small table with his 
back toward them. He had leaped to his feet now, his 
face furious, and with another demoniac curse he gave the 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 39 


coal skuttle a kick that sent it with a bang to the far end 
of the car. The table was littered with playing cards. 

“Damn ’em—they beat me this time in ten plays!” 
he yelled. “They’ve got the devil in ’em! If they was 
alive I’d jump on ’em! I’ve played this game of solitaire 
for nineteen years—I’ve played a million games—an’ 
damned if I ever got beat in my life as it’s beat me since 
we left Halifax!” 

“Dear Heaven!” gasped Father Roland. “Have you 
been playing all the way from Halifax?” 

The solitaire fiend seemed not to hear, and resuming his 
seat with a low and ominous muttering, he dealt himself 
another hand. In less than a minute he was on his feet 
again, shaking the cards angrily under the Little Mis- 
sioner’s nose as though that individual were entirely ac¬ 
countable for his bad luck. 

“Look at that accursed trey of hearts!” he demanded. 
“First card, ain’t it? First card!—an’ if it had been the 
third, ’r the sixth, ’r the ninth, ’r anything except that 
confounded Number One, I’d have slipped the game up 
my sleeve. Ain’t it enough to wreck any honest man’s 
soul? I ask you—ain’t it?” 

“ Why don’t you change the trey of hearts to the place 
that suits you?” asked David, innocently. “It seems to 
me it would be very easy to move it to third place in the 
deck if you want it there.” 

The baggage-man’s bulging eyes seemed ready to pop 
as he stared at David, and when he saw that David really 
meant what he had said a look of unutterable disgust 
spread over his countenance. Then he grinned—a sickly 
and malicious sort of grin. 


40 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“Say, mister, you’ve never played solitaire, have you?” 
he asked. 

“Never,” confessed David. 

Without another word the baggage-man hunched him¬ 
self over his table, dealt himself another hand, and not 
until the train began slowing up for Thoreau’s place did 
he rise from his seat or cease his low mutterings and 
grumblings. In response to the engineer’s whistle he 
jumped to his feet and rolled back the car door. 

“Now step lively!” he demanded. “We’ve got no 
orders to stop here and we’ll have to dump this stuff out 
on the move!” 

As he spoke he gave the hundred and ten pounds of 
beans a heave out into the night. Father Roland jumped 
to his assistance, and David saw his steamer trunk and his 
hand-bags follow the beans. 

“The snow is soft and deep, an’ there won’t be any 
harm done,” Father Roland assured him as he tossed out 
a 50-pound box of prunes. 

David heard sounds now: a man’s shout, a fiendish 
tonguing of dogs, and above that a steady chorus of yap¬ 
ping which he guessed came from the foxes. Suddenly a 
lantern gleamed, then a second and a third, and a dark, 
bearded face—a fierce and piratical-looking face—began 
running along outside the door. The last box and the 
last bag went off, and with a sudden movement the train¬ 
man hauled David to the door. 

“Jump!” he cried. 

The face and the lantern had fallen behind, and it was 
as black as an abyss outside. With a mute prayer David 
launched himself much as he had seen the bags and boxes 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 41 


sent out. He fell with a thud in a soft blanket of snow. 
He looked up in time to see the Little Missioner flying out 
like a curious gargoyle through the door; the baggage¬ 
man’s lantern waved, the engineer’s whistle gave a re¬ 
sponding screech, and the train whirred past. Not until 
the tail-light of the last coach was receding like a great 
red firefly in the gloom did David get up. Father Roland 
was on his feet, and down the track came two of the three 
lanterns on the run. 

It was all unusually weird and strangely interesting to 
David. He was breathing deeply. There was a warmth 
in his body which was new to him. It struck him all at 
once, as he heard Father Roland crunching through the 
snow, that he was experiencing an entirely new phase of 
life—a life he had read about at times and dreamed of at 
other times, but which he had never come physically in 
contact with. The yapping of the foxes, the crying of the 
dogs, those lanterns hurrying down the track, the blackness 
of the night, and the strong perfume of balsam in the cold 
air—an odour that he breathed deep into his lungs like the 
fumes of an exhilarating drink—quickened sharply a pulse 
that a few hours before he thought was almost lifeless. 
He had no time to ask himself whether he was enjoying 
these new sensations; he felt only the thrill of them as 
Thoreau and the Indian came up out of the night with 
their lanterns. In Thoreau himself, as he stood a moment 
later in the glow of the lanterns, was embodied the living, 
breathing spirit of this new world into which David’s 
leap out of the baggage car had plunged him. He was 
picturesquely of the wild; his face was darkly bearded; his 
ivory-white teeth shining as he smiled a welcome; his tri- 


42 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


coloured, Hudson’s Bay coat of wool, with its frivolous 
red fringes, thrown open at the throat; the bushy tail of his 
fisher-skin cap hanging over a shoulder—and with these 
things his voice rattling forth, in French and half Indian, 
his joy that Father Roland was not dead but had arrived 
at last. Behind him stood the Indian—h-s face without 
expression, dark, shrouded—a bronze sphinx of mystery. 
But his eyes shone as the Little Missioner greeted him— 
shone so darkly and so full of fire that for a moment David 
was fascinated by them. Then David was introduced. 

“I am happy to meet you, m’sieu,” said the Frenchman. 
His race was softly polite, even in the forests, and Thoreau’s 
voice, now mildly subdued, came strangely from the 
bearded wildness of his face. The grip of his hand was 
like Father Roland’s—something David had never felt 
among his friends back in the city. He winced in the 
darkness, and for a long time afterward his fingers tingled. 

It was then that David made his first break in the 
etiquette of the forests; a fortunate one, as time proved. 
He did not know that shaking hands with an Indian was a 
matter of some formality, and so when Father Roland 
said, “This is Mukoki, who has been with me for many 
years,” David thrust out his hand. Mukoki looked him 
straight in the eye for a moment, and then his blanket- 
coat parted and his slim, dark hand reached out. Having 
received his lesson from both the Missioner and the 
Frenchman, David put into his grip all the strength that 
was in him—the warmest hand-shake Mukoki had ever 
received in his life from a white man, with the exception 
of his master, the Missioner. 

The next thing David heard was Father Roland’s voice 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 43 

inquiring eagerly about supper. Thoreau’s reply was in 
French. 

44 He says the cabin is like the inside of a great, roast 
duck,” chuckled the Missioner. “Come, David. We’ll 
leave Mukoki to gather up our freight.” 

A short walk up the track and David saw the cabin. 
It was back in the shelter of the black spruce and balsam, 
its two windows that faced the railroad warmly illumined 
by the light inside. The foxes had ceased their yapping, 
but the snarling and howling of dogs became more blood¬ 
thirsty as they drew nearer, and David could hear an 
ominous clinking of chains and snapping of teeth. A few 
steps more and they were at the door. Thoreau himself 
opened it, and stood back. 

“ Apr es vous, rrfsieu” he said, his white teeth shining 
at David. “It would give me bad luck and possibly all 
my foxes would die, if I went into my house ahead of a 
stranger.” 

David went in. An Indian woman stood with her back 
to him, bending over a table. She was as slim as a reed, 
and had the longest and sleekest black hair he had ever 
seen, done in two heavy braids that hung down her back. 
In another moment she had turned her round, brown face, 
and her teeth and eyes were shining, but she spoke no word. 
Thoreau did not introduce his wild-flower wife. He had 
opened his cabin door, and had let David enter before him, 
which was accepting him as a friend in his home, and 
therefore, in his understanding of things, an introduction 
was unnecessary and out of place. Father Roland chuckled, 
rubbed his hands briskly, and said something to the 
woman in he** own language that made her giggle shylv. 


44 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

It was contagious. David smiled. Father Roland’s 
face was crinkled with little lines of joy. The French¬ 
man’s teeth gleamed. In the big cook-stove the fire 
snapped and crackled and popped. Marie opened the stove 
door to put in more wood and her face shone rosy and her 
teeth were like milk in the fire-flash. Thoreau went to 
her and laid his big, heavy hand fondly on her sleek head, 
and said something in soft Cree that brought another giggle 
into Marie’s throat, like the curious note of a bird. 

In David there was a slow and wonderful awakening. 
Every fibre of him was stirred by the cheer of this cabir 
builded from logs rough-hewn out of the forest; his body, 
weakened by the months of mental and physical anguish 
which had been his burden, seemed filled with a new 
strength. Unconsciously he was smiling and his soul was 
rising out of its dark prison as he saw Thoreau’s big hand 
stroking Marie’s shfhing hair. He was watching Thoreau 
when, at a word from Marie, the Frenchman suddenly 
swung open the oven door and pulled forth a huge roasting 
pan. 

At sight of the pan Father Roland gave a joyous cry, 
and he rubbed his hands raspingly together. The rich 
aroma of that pan! A delicious whiff of it had struck their 
nostrils even before the cabin door had opened—that and 
a perfume of coffee; but not until now did the fragrance of 
the oven and the pan smite them with all its potency. 

“Mallards fattened on wild rice, and a rabbit—my 
favourite—a rabbit roasted with an onion where his heart 
was, and well peppered,” gloated the Little Missioner. 
“ Dear Heaven! was there ever such a mess to put strength 
into a man’s gizzard, David? And coffee—this coffee of 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 45 

Marie’s! It is more than ambrosia. It is an elixir which 
transforms a cup into a fountain of youth. Take off 
your coat, David; take off your coat and make yourself at 
home! ” 

As David stripped off his coat, and followed that with 
his collar and tie, he thought of his steamer trunk with its 
Tuxedo and dress-coat, its pique shirts and poke collars, 
its suede gloves and kid-topped patent leathers, and he felt 
the tips of his ears beginning to burn. He was sorry now 
that he had given the Missioner the check to that trunk. 

A minute later he was sousing his face in a big tin wash¬ 
basin, and then drying it on a towel that had once been a 
burlap bag. But he had noticed that it was clean—as 
clean as the pink-flushed face of Marie. And the French¬ 
man himself, with all his hair, and his beard, and his 
rough-worn clothing, was as clean as the burlap towelling. 
Being a stranger, suddenly plunged into a life entirely 
new to him, these things impressed David. 

When they sat down to the table—Thoreau sitting for 
company, and Marie standing behind them—he was at a 
loss at first to know how to begin. His plate was of tin 
and a foot in diameter, and on it was a three-pound mallard 
duck, dripping with juice and as brown as a ripe hazel-nut. 
He made a business of arranging his sleeves and drinking a 
glass of water while he watched the famished Little Mis¬ 
sioner. With a chuckle of delight Father Roland plunged 
the tines of his fork hilt deep into the breast of the duck, 
seized a leg in his fingers, and dismembered the luscious 
anatomy of his plate with a deft twist and a sudden pull. 
With his teeth buried in the leg he looked across at David. 
David had eaten duck before; that is, he had eaten of the 


46 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


family anas boschas disguised in thick gravies and highbrow 
sauces, but this duck that he ate at Thoreau’s table was 
like no other duck that he had ever tasted in all his life. 
He began with misgivings at the three-pound carcass, and 
he ended with an entirely new feeling of stuffed satisfac¬ 
tion. He explored at will into its structure, and he found 
succulent morsels which he had never dreamed of as exist¬ 
ing in this particular bird, for his experience had never 
before gone beyond a leg of duck and thinly carved slices 
of breast of duck, at from eighty cents to a dollar and a 
quarter an order. He would have been ashamed of him¬ 
self when he had finished had it not been that Father 
Roland seemed only at the beginning, and was turning the 
vigour of his attack from duck to rabbit and onion. From 
then on David kept him company by drinking a third cup 
of coffee. 

When he had finished Father Roland settled back with 
a sigh of content, and drew a worn buckskin pouch from 
one of the voluminous pockets of his trousers. Out of 
this he produced a black pipe and tobacco. At the same 
time Thoreau was filling and lighting his own. In his 
studies and late-hour work at home David himself had 
been a pipe smoker, but of late his pipe had been distaste¬ 
ful to him, and it had been many weeks since he had 
indulged in anything but cigars and an occasional cigarette. 
He looked at the placid satisfaction in the Little Mis¬ 
sioned face, and saw Thoreau’s head wreathed in smoke, 
and he felt for the first time in those weeks the return of his 
old desire. While they were eating, Mukoki and another 
Indian had brought in his trunk and bags, and he went now 
to one of the bags, opened it, and got his own pipe and 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 47 


tobacco. As he stuffed the bowl of his English briar, and 
lighted the tobacco, Father Roland’s glowing face beamed 
at him through the fragrant fumes of his Hudson’s Bay 
Mixture. 

Against the wall, a little in shadow, so that she would 
not be a part of their company or whatever conversation 
they might have, Marie had seated herself, her round chin 
in the cup of her brown hand, her dark eyes shining at this 
comfort and satisfaction of men. Such scenes as this 
amply repaid her for all her toil in life. She was happy. 
There was content in this cabin. David felt it. It 
impinged itself upon him, and through him, in a strange 
and mysterious way. Within these log walls he felt the 
presence of that spirit—the joy of companionship and of 
life—which had so terribly eluded and escaped him in his 
own home of wealth and luxury. He heard Marie speak 
only once that night—once, in a low, soft voice to Thoreau. 
She was silent with the silence of the Cree wife in the 
presence of a stranger, but he knew that her heart was 
throbbing with the soft pulse of happiness, and for some 
reason he was glad when Thoreau nodded proudly toward 
a closed door and let him know that she was a mother. 
Marie heard hitn, and in that moment David caught in 
her face a look that made his heart ache—a look that should 
have been a part of his own life, and which he had missed. 

A little later Thoreau led the way into the room which 
David was to occupy for the night. It was a small room, 
with a sapling partition between it and the one in which 
the Missioner was to sleep. The fox breeder placed a 
lamp on the table near the bed, and bade David good- 
sight. 


48 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


It was past two o’clock, and yet David felt at the present 
moment no desire for sleep. After he had taken off his 
shoes and partially undressed, he sat on the edge of his 
bed and allowed his mind to sweep back over the events 
of the last few hours. Again he thought of the woman 
in the coach—the woman with those wonderful, dark 
eyes and haunting face—and he drew forth from his coat 
pocket the package which she had forgotten. He handled 
it curiously. He looked at the red string, noted how 
tightly the knot was tied, and turned it over and over in 
his hands before he snapped the string. He was a little 
ashamed at his eagerness to know what was within its 
worn newspaper wrapping. He felt the disgrace of his 
curiosity, even though he assured himself there was no 
reason why he should not investigate the package now 
when all ownership was lost. He knew that he would never 
see the woman again, and that she would always remain 
a mystery to him unless what he held in his hands revealed 
the secret of her identity. 

A half minute more and he was leaning over in the full 
light of the lamp, his two hands clutching the thing which 
the paper had disclosed when it dropped to the floor, his 
eyes staring, his lips parted, and his heart seeming to stand 
still in the utter amazement of the moment! 




CHAPTER V 


D AVTD held in his hands a photograph—the picture 
of a girl. He had half guessed what he would find 
when he began to unfold the newspaper wrapping 
and saw the edge of gray cardboard. In the same breath 
had come his astonishment—a surprise that was almost a 
shock. The night had been filled with changes for him; 
forces which he had not yet begun to comprehend had 
drawn him into the beginning of a strange adventure; 
they had purged his thoughts of himself; they had forced 
upon him other things, other people, and a glimpse or two 
of another sort of life; he had seen tragedy, and happiness 
—a bit of something to laugh at; and he had felt the thrill 
of it all. A few hours had made him the bewildered and 
yet passive object of the unexpected. And now, as he sat 
alone on the edge of his bed, had come the climax of the 
unexpected. 

The girl in the picture was not dead—not merely a life¬ 
less shadow put there by the art of a camera. She was 
alive! That was his first thought—his first impression. 
It was as if he had come upon her suddenly, and by his 
presence had startled her—had made her face him squarely, 
tensely, a little frightened, and yet defiant, and ready for 
flight. In that first moment he would not have disbe¬ 
lieved his eyes if she had moved, if she had drawn away 
from him and disappeared out of the picture with the 


50 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


swiftness of a bird. For he—some one—had startled her; 
some one had frightened her; some one had made her afraid, 
and yet defiant; some one had roused in her that bird-like 
impulse of flight even as the camera had clicked. 

He bent closer into the lampglow, and stared. The 
girl was standing on a flat slab of rock close to the edge of 
a pool. Behind her was a carpet of white sand, and be¬ 
yond that a rock-cluttered gorge and the side of a mountain. 
She was barefooted. Her feet were white against the dark 
rock. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and shone with 
that same whiteness. He took these things in one by one., 
as if it were impossible for the picture to impress itself upon 
him all at once. She stood leaning a little forward on the 
rock slab, her dress only a little below her knees, and as she 
leaned thus, her eyes flashing and her lips parted, the wind 
had flung a wonderful disarray of curls over her shoulder 
and breast. He saw the sunlight in them; in the lamp- 
glow they seemed to move; the throb of her breast seemed 
to give them life; one hand seemed about to fling them 
back from her face; her lips quivered as if about to 
speak to him. Against the savage background of 
mountain and gorge she stood out clear-cut as a cameo, 
slender as a reed, wild, palpitating, beautiful. She was 
more than a picture. She was life. She was there— 
with David in his room—as surely as the woman had been 
with him in the coach. 

He drew a deep breath and sat back on the edge of his 
bed. He heard Father Roland getting into his creaky bed 
in the adjoining room. Then came the Missioner’s voice. 

“Good-night, David.” 

“Good-night, Father.” 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 51 


For a space after that he sat staring blankly at the log 
wall of his room. Then he leaned over again and held the 
photograph a second time in the lampglow. The first 
strange spell of the picture was broken, and he looked at it 
more coolly, more critically, a little disgusted with him¬ 
self for having allowed his imagination to play a trick on 
him. He turned it over in his hands, and on the back of 
the cardboard mount he saw there had been writing. He 
examined it closely, and made out faintly the words, 
“Firepan Creek, Stikine River, August ...” and 
the date was gone. That was all. There was no name, no 
word that might give him a clue as to the identity of the 
mysterious woman in the coach, or her relationship to the 
strange picture she had left in her seat when she disap¬ 
peared at Graham. 

Once more his puzzled eyes tried to find some solution to 
the mystery of this night in the picture of the girl herself, 
and as he looked, question after question pounded through 
his head. What had startled her? Who had frightened 
her? What had brought that hunted look—that half¬ 
defiance—into her poise and eyes, just as he had seen the 
strange questing and suppressed fear in the eyes and face 
of the woman in the coach? He made no effort to answer, 
but accepted the visual facts as they came to him. She 
was young, the girl in the picture; almost a child as he re¬ 
garded childhood. Perhaps seventeen, or a month or two 
older; he was curiously precise in adding that month or 
two. Something in the woman of her as she stood on the 
rock made it occur to him as necessary. He saw, now, 
that she had been wading in the pool, for she had dropped 
a stocking on the white sand, and near it lay an object that 


52 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


was a shoe or a moccasin, he could not make out which, 
It was while she had been wading—alone—that the in¬ 
terruption had come; she had turned; she had sprung to 
the flat rock, her hands a little clenched, her eyes flashing, 
her breast panting under the smother of her hair; and it 
was in this moment, as she stood ready to fight—or fly— 
that the camera had caught her. 

Now, as he scanned this picture, as it lived before his 
eyes, a faint smile played over his lips, a smile in which 
there was a little humour and much irony. He had been 
a fool that day, twice a fool, perhaps three times a fool. 
Nothing but folly, a diseased conception of things, could 
have made him see tragedy in the face of the woman in the 
coach, or have induced him to follow her. Sleeplessness— 
a mental exhaustion to which his body had not responded 
in two days and two nights—had dulled his senses and his 
reason. He felt an unpleasant desire to laugh at himself. 
Tragedy! A woman in distress! He shrugged his shoulders, 
and his teeth gleamed in a cold smile at the girl in the pic¬ 
ture. Surely there was no tragedy or mystery in her poise 
on that rock! She had been bathing, alone, hidden *»,way as 
she thought; some one had crept up, had disturbed her, and 
the camera had clicked at the psychological moment of her 
bird-like poise when she was not yet decided whether to 
turn in flight or remain and punish the intruder with her 
anger. It was quite clear to him. Any girl caught in the 
same way might have betrayed the same emotions. But 
—Firepan Creek—Stikine River . . . And she was 

wild. She was a creature of those mountains and that 
wild gorge, wherever they were—and beautiful—slender 
as a flower—lovelier than . . . 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 53 


David set his lips tight. They shut off a quick breath, 
a gasp, the sharp surge of a sudden pain. Swift as his 
thoughts there had come a transformation in the picture 
before his eyes—a drawing of a curtain over it, like a 
golden veil; and then she was standing there, and the gold 
had gathered about her in the wonderful mantle of her 
hair—shining, dishevelled hair—a bare, white arm thrust 
upward through its sheen, and her face—taunting, un¬ 
afraid —laughing at him! Good God! could he never kill 
that memory? Was it upon him again to-night, clutching 
at his throat, stifling his heart, grinding him into the agony 
he could not fight—that vision of her —his ivife? That 
girl on her rock, so like a slender flower! That woman in 
her room, so like a golden goddess! Both caught—unex¬ 
pectedly! What devil-spirit had made him pick up this 
picture from the woman’s seat? What . . . 

His fingers tightened upon the photograph, ready to 
tear it into bits. The cardboard ripped an inch—and he 
stopped suddenly his impulse to destroy. The girl was 
looking at him again from out of the picture—looking at 
him with clear, wide eyes, surprised at his weakness, 
startled by the fierceness of his assault upon her, wondering, 
amazed, questioning him! For the first time he saw 
what he had missed before—that questioning in her eyes. 
It was as if she were on the point of asking him something 
—as if her voice had just come from between her parted 
lips, or were about to come. And for him; that was it— 
for him! 

His fingers relaxed. He smoothed down the torn edge 
of the cardboard, as if it had been a wound in his own 
flesh. After all, this inanimate thing was very much like 


54 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


himself. It was lost, a thing out of place, and out of home; 
a wanderer from now on depending largely, like himself, on 
the charity of fate. Almost gently he returned it to its 
newspaper wrapping. Deep within him there was a senti¬ 
ment which made him cherish little things which had 
belonged to the past—a baby’s shoe, a faded ribbon, a 
withered flower that she had worn on the night they were 
married; and memories—memories that he might better 
have let droop and die. Something of this spirit was in the 
touch of his fingers as he placed the photograph on the 
table. 

He finished undressing quietly. Before he turned in he 
placed a hand on his head. It was hot, feverish. This was 
not unusual, and it did not alarm him. Quite often of late 
these hot and feverish spells had come upon him, nearly 
always at night. Usually they were followed the next day 
by a terrific headache. More and more frequently they 
had been warning him how nearly down and out he was, 
and he knew what to expect. He put out his light and 
stretched himself between the warm blankets of his bed, 
knowing that he was about to begin again the fight he 
dreaded—the struggle that always came at night with the 
demon that lived within him, the demon that was feeding 
on his life as a leech feeds on blood, the demon that was 
killing him inch by inch. Nerves altogether unstrung! 
Nerves frayed and broken until they were bleeding! 
Worry—emptiness of heart and soul—a world turned 
black! And all because of her —the golden goddess who 
had laughed at him in her room, whose laughter would 
never die out of his ears. He gritted his teeth; his hands 
clenched under his blankets; a surge of anger swept 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 55 


through him—for an instant it was almost hatred. Was 
it possible that she—that woman who had been his wife— 
could chain him now, enslave his thoughts, fill his mind, 
his brain, his body, after what had happened? Why was 
it that he could not rise up and laugh and shrug his shoul¬ 
ders, and thank God that, after all, there had been no 
children? Why couldn’t he do that? Why? Why? 

A long time afterward he seemed to be asking that ques¬ 
tion. He seemed to be crying it out aloud, over and over 
again, in a strange and mysterious wilderness; and at last 
he seemed to be very near to a girl who was standing on a 
rock waiting for him; a girl who bent toward him like a 
wonderful flower, her arms reaching out, her lips parted, 
her eyes shining through the glory of her windswept hair 
as she listened to his cry of “ Why? Why?' 9 

He slept. It was a deep, cool sleep; a slumber beside 
a shadowed pool, with the wind whispering gently in 
strange tree tops, and water rippling softly in a strange 
stream. 


CHAPTER VI 


S UNSHINE followed storm. The winter sun was 
cresting the tree tops when Thoreau got out of his 
bed to build a fire in the big stove. It was nine 
o’clock, and bitterly cold. The frost lay thick upon the 
windows, with the sun staining it like the silver and gold 
of old cathedral glass, and as the fox breeder opened the 
cabin door to look at his thermometer he heard the snap 
and crack of that cold in the trees outside, and in the tim¬ 
bers of the log walls. He always looked at the thermome¬ 
ter before he built his fire—a fixed habit in him; he wanted 
to know, first of all, whether it had been a good night for 
his foxes, and whether it had been too cold for the furred 
creatures of the forest to travel. Fifty degrees below zero 
was bad for fisher and marten and lynx; on such nights 
they preferred the warmth of snug holes and deep wind¬ 
falls to full stomachs, and his traps were usually empty. 
This morning it was forty-seven degrees below zero. 
Cold enough! He turned, closed the door, shivered. 
Then he stopped halfway to the stove, and stared. 

Last night, or rather in that black part of the early day 
when they had gone to bed. Father Roland had warned 
him to make no noise in the morning; that they would let 
David sleep until noon; that he was sick, worn out, and 
needed rest. And there he stood now in the doorway of 
his room, even before the fire was started—looking five 
50 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 57 

years younger than he looked last night, nodding cheer¬ 
fully. 

Thoreau grinned. 

“ Boo-jou , m'sieu ,” he said in his Cree-French. “My 
order was to make no noise and to let you sleep,” and he 
nodded toward the Missioner’s room. 

“The sun woke me,” said David. “Come here. I 
want you to see it!” 

Thoreau went and stood beside him, and David pointed 
to the one window of his room, which faced the rising sun. 
The window was covered with frost, and the frost as they 
looked at it was like a golden fire. 

“I think that was what woke me,” he said. “At least 
my eyes were on it when I opened them. It is wonderful! ” 

“It is very cold, and the frost is thick,” said Thoreau. 
“It will go quickly after I have built a fire, m’sieu. And 
then you will see the sun—the real sun.” 

David watched him as he built the fire. The first 
crackling of it sent a comfort through him. He had slept 
well, so soundly that not once had he roused himself during 
his six hours in bed. It was the first time he had slept 
like that in months. His blood tingled with a new warmth. 
He had no headache. There was not that dull pain be¬ 
hind his eyes. He breathed more easily—the air passed 
like a tonic into his lungs. It was as if those wonderful 
hours of sleep had wrested some deadly obstruction out 
of his veins. The fire crackled. It roared up the big 
chimney. The jack-pine knots, heavy with pitch, gave 
to the top of the stove a rosy glow. Thoreau stuffed more 
fuel into the blazing firepot, and the glow spread cheer¬ 
fully, and with the warmth that was filling the cabin there 


58 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


mingled the sweet scent of the pine-pitch and burning 
balsam. David rubbed his hands. He was rubbing them 
when Marie came into the room, plaiting the second of her 
two great ropes of shining black hair. He nodded. Marie 
smiled, showing her white teeth, her dark eyes clear as a 
fawn’s. He felt within him a strange rejoicing—for Tho¬ 
reau. Thoreau was a lucky man. He could see proof of it 
in the Cree woman’s face. Both were lucky. They were 
happy—a man and woman together, as things should be. 

Thoreau had broken the ice in a pail and now he filled 
the wash-basin for him. Ice water for his morning 
ablution was a new thing for David. But he plunged his 
face into it recklessly. Little particles of ice pricked his 
skin, and the chill of the water seemed to sink into his 
vitals. It was a sudden change from water as hot as he 
could stand—to this. His teeth clicked as he wiped him* 
self on the burlap towelling. Marie used the basin next, 
and then Thoreau. When Marie had dried her face he 
noted the old-rose flush in her cheeks, the fire of rich, red 
blood glowing under her dark skin. Thoreau himself 
blubbered and spouted in his ice-water bath like a joyous 
porpoise, and he rubbed himself on the burlap until the 
two apple-red spots above his beard shone like the glow 
that had spread over the top of the stove. David found 
himself noticing these things—very small things though 
they were; he discovered himself taking a sudden and 
curious interest in events and things of no importance at 
all, even in the quick, deft slash of the Frenchman’s long 
kn i f e as he cut up the huge whitefish that was to be their 
breakfast. He watched Marie as she wallowed the thick 
slices in yellow corn-meal, and listened to the first hissing 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 59 


sputter of them as they were dropped into the hot grease 
of the skillet. And the odour of the fish, taken only 
yesterday from the net which Thoreau kept in the frozen 
lake, made him hungry. This was unusual. It was unex« 
pected as other things that had happened. It puzzled him. 

He returned to his room, with a suspicion in his mind 
that he should put on a collar and tie, and his coat. He 
changed his mind when he saw the photograph in its 
newspaper wrapping on the table. In another moment it 
was in his hands. Now, with day in the room, the sun 
shining, he expected to see a change. But there was no 
change in her; she was there, as he had left her last night; 
the question was in her eyes, unspoken words still on her 
lips. Then, suddenly, it swept upon him where he had 
been in those first hours of peaceful slumber that had come 
to him—beside a quiet, dark pool—gently whispering 
forests about him—an angel standing close to him, on a 
rock, shrouded in her hair—watching over him. A 
thrill passed through him. Was it possible? . . . He 

did not finish the question. He could not bring himself 
to ask whether this picture—some strange spirit it might 
possess—had reached out to him, quieted him, made him 
sleep, brought him dreams that were like a healing medi¬ 
cine. And yet . . . 

He remembered that in one of his leather bags there was 
a magnifying glass, and he assured himself that he was 
merely curious—most casually curious—as he hunted it 
out from among his belongings and scanned the almost 
illegible writing on the back of the cardboard mount. He 
made out the date quite easily now, impressed in the card¬ 
board by the point of a pencil. It was only a little more 


60 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOQNE 


than a year old. It was unaccountable why this discovery 
should affect him as it did. He made no effort to measure 
or sound the satisfaction it gave him—this knowledge that 
the girl had stood so recently on that rock beside the pool. 
He was beginning to personalize her unconsciously, be¬ 
ginning to think of her mentally as the Girl. She was a 
bit friendly. With her looking at him like that he did not 
feel quite so alone with himself. And there could not be 
much of a change in her since that yesterday of a year ago, 
when some one had startled her there. 

It was Father Roland’s voice that made him wrap up 
the picture again, this time not in its old covering, but in 
a silk handkerchief which he had pawed out of his bag, 
and which he dropped back again, and locked in. Thoreau 
was telling the Missioner about David’s early rising when 
the latt : reappeared. They shook hands, and the Mis¬ 
sioner, looking David keenly in the eyes, saw the change in 
him. 

“No need to tell me you had a good night!” he exclaimed. 

“Splendid,” affirmed David. 

The window was blazing with the golden sun now; it shot 
through where the frost was giving way, and a ray of it 
fell like a fiery shaft on Marie’s glossy head as she bent 
over the table. Father Roland pointed to the window 
with one hand on David’s arm. 

“Wait until you get out into that” he said. “This is 
just a beginning, David—just a beginning!” 

They sat down to breakfast, fish and coffee, bread and 
potatoes—and beans. It was almost finished when David 
split open his third piece of fish, white as snow under its 
crisp brown, and asked quite casually: 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 61 

“ Did you ever hear of the Stikine River, Father? ” 

Father Roland sat up, stopped his eating, and looked at 
David for a moment as though the question struck an 
unusual personal interest in him. 

“ I know a man who lived for a great many years along 
the Stikine,” he replied then. ‘Tie knows every mile of it 
from where it empties into the sea at Point Rothshay to 
the Lost Country between Mount Finlay and the Sheep 
Mountains. It’s in the northern part of British Columbia, 
with its upper waters reaching into the Yukon. A wild 
country. A country less known than it was sixty years 
ago, when there was a gold rush up over the old telegraph 
trail. Tavish has told me a lot about it. A queer man— 
this Tavish. We hit his cabin on our way to God’s 
Lake.” 

“Did he ever tell you,” said David, with an odd quiver 
in his throat—“ Did he ever tell you of a stream, a tribu¬ 
tary stream, called Firepan Creek?” 

“Firepan Creek—Firepan Creek,” mumbled the Little 
Missioner. “He has told me a great many things, this 
Tavish, but I can’t remember that. Firepan Creek! 
Yes, he did! I remember, now. He had a cabin on it one 
year, the year he had small-pox. He almost died there. 
I want you to meet Tavish, David. We will stay over¬ 
night at his cabin. He is a strange character—a great 
object lesson.” Suddenly he came back to David’s 
question. “What do you want to know about Stikine 
River and Firepan Creek?” he asked. 

“I was reading something about them that interested 
me,” replied David. “ A very wild country, I take it, from 
what Tavish has told you. Probably no white people.* 


62 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

“Always, everywhere, there are a few white people,’* 
said Father Roland. “Tavish is white, and he was there. 
Sixty years ago, in the gold rush, there must have been 
many. But I fancy there are very few now. Tavish can 
tell us. He came from there only a year ago this last 
September.” 

David asked no more questions. He turned his atten¬ 
tion entirely to his fish. In that same moment there came 
an outburst from the foxes that made Thoreau grin. 
Their yapping rose until it was a clamorous demand. 
Then the dogs joined in. To David it seemed as though 
there must be a thousand foxes out in the Frenchman’s 
pens, and at least a hundred dogs just beyond the cabin 
walls. The sound was blood-curdling in a way. He had 
heard nothing like it before in all his life; it almost made 
one shiver to think of going outside. The chorus kept up 
for fully a minute. Then it began to die out, and David 
could hear the chill clink of chains. Through it all 
Thoreau was grinning. 

“ It’s two hours over feeding time for the foxes, and they 
know it, m’sieur,” he explained to David. “Their outcry 
excites the huskies, and when the two go together —Mon 
Dieu l it is enough to raise the dead.” He pushed himself 
back from the table and rose to his feet. “ I am going to 
feed them now. Would you like to see it, m’sieu?” 

Father Roland answered for him. 

“Give us ten minutes and we shall be ready,” he said, 
seizing David by the arm, and speaking to Thoreau. 
“Come with me, David. I have something waiting for you.” 

They went into the Little Missioner’s room, and pointing 
to his tumbled bed. Father Roland said: 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 68 

“Now, David, strip!” 

David had noticed with some concern the garments 
worn that morning by Father Roland and the Frenchman 
—their thick woollen shirts, their strange-looking, heavy 
trousers that were met just below the knees by the tops 
of bulky German socks, turned over as he had worn his 
more fashionable hosiery in the college days when golf 
suits, bulldog pipes, and white terriers were the rage. He 
had stared furtively at Thoreau’s great feet in their 
moose-hide moccasins, thinking of his own vici kids, the 
heaviest footwear he had brought with him. The problem 
of outfitting was solved for him now, as he looked at the 
bed, and as Father Roland withdrew, rubbing his hands 
until they cracked, David began undressing. In less than 
a quarter of an hour he was ready for the big outdoors. 
When the Missioner returned to give him a first lesson in 
properly “stringing up ” his moccasins, he brought with him 
a fur cap very similar to that worn by Thoreau. He was 
amazed to find how perfectly it fitted. 

“You see,” said Father Roland, pleased at David’s 
wonder, “I always take back a bale of this stuff with me, 
of different sizes* it comes in handy, you know. And the 
cap . . . 

He chuckled as David surveyed as much as he could 
see of himself in a small mirror. 

“The cap is Marie’s work,” he finished. “She got the 
size from your hat and made it while we were asleep. 
A fine fisher-coat that—Thoreau’s best. And a good fit, 
eh?” 

“Marie . . . did this ... for me?” de¬ 

manded David. 


64 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


The Missioner nodded. 

“And the pay, Father . . .” 

“Among friends of the forests, David, never speak of pay.” 

“But this skin! It is beautiful—valuable . . .” 

“And it is yours,” said Father Roland. “I am glad 
you mentioned payment to me, and not to Thoreau or 
Marie. They might not have understood, and it would 
have hurt them. If there had been anything to pay, they 
would have mentioned it in the giving; I would have men¬ 
tioned it. That is a fine point of etiquette, isn’t it? ” 

Slowly there came a look into David’s face which the 
other did not at first understand. After a moment he 
said, without looking at the Missioner, and in a voice 
that had a curious hard note in it: 

“ But for this . . . Marie will let me give her some¬ 

thing in return—a little something I have no use for now? 
A little gift—my thanks—my friendship . . .’ 

He did not wait for the Missioner to reply, but went 
to one of his two leather bags. He unlocked the one in 
which he had placed the photograph of the girl. Out of it 
he took a small plush box. It was so small that it lay 
in the palm of his hand as he held it out to Father Roland. 

Deeper lines had gathered about his mouth. 

“Give this to Marie—for me.” 

Father Roland took the box. He did not look at it. 
Steadily he gazed into David’s eyes. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“A locket,” replied David. “It belonged to her . In 
it is a picture—her picture—the only one I have. Will 
you—please—destroy the picture before you give the 
locket to Marie?” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 65 

Father Roland saw the quick, sudden throb in David’s 
throat. He gripped the little box in his hand until it 
seemed as though he would crush it, and his heart was 
beating with the triumph of a drum. He spoke but one 
word, his eyes meeting David’s eyes, but that one word 
was a whisper from straight out of his soul, and the word 
was: 

“Victory 1” 


CHAPTER VII 


F ATHER ROLAND slipped the little plush box into 
his pocket as he and David went out to join Tho- 
reau. They left the cabin together, Marie lifting 
her eyes from her work in a furtive glance to see if the 
stranger was wearing her cap. 

A wild outcry from the dogs greeted the three men as 
they appeared outside the door, and for the first time 
David saw with his eyes what he had only heard last night. 
Among the balsams and spruce close to the cabin there were 
fully a score of the wildest and most savage-looking dogs 
he had ever beheld. As he stood for a moment, gazing 
about him, three things impressed themselves upon him 
in a flash: it was a glorious day, it was so cold that he felt 
a curious sting in the air, and not one of those long-haired, 
white-fanged beasts straining at their leashes possessed a 
kennel, or even a brush shelter. It was this last fact 
that struck him most forcefully. Inherently he was a 
lover of animals, and he believed these four-footed creatures 
of Thoreau’s must have suffered terribly during the night. 
He noticed that at the foot of each tree to which a dog 
was attached there was a round, smooth depression in the 
snow, where the animal had slept. The next few minutes 
added to his conviction that the Frenchman and the Mis- 
sioner were heartless masters, though open-handed hosts. 
Mukoki and another Indian had come up with two gunny 
66 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 67 


sacks, and from one of these a bushel of fish was emptied 
out upon the snow. They were frozen stiff, so that Mu- 
koki had to separate them with his belt-axe; David fancied 
they must be hard as rock. Thoreau proceeded to toss 
these fish to the dogs, one at a time, and one to each dog. 
The watchful and apparently famished beasts caught 
the fish in mid-air, and there followed a snarling and grind¬ 
ing of teeth and smashing of bones and frozen flesh that 
made David shiver. He was half disgusted. Thoreau 
might at least have boiled the fish, or thawed them out. 
A fish weighing from one and a half to two pounds was each 
dog’s allotment, and the work—if this feeding process 
could be called work—was done. Father Roland watched 
the dogs, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. Thoreau 
was showing his big, white teeth, as if proud of something. 

“Not a bad tooth among them, mon Pere ,” he said. 
“Not one!” 

“Fine—fine—but a little too fat, Thoreau. You’re 
feeding them too well for dogs out of the traces,” replied 
Father Roland. 

David gasped. 

“ Too well! ” he exclaimed. “ They’re half starved, and 
almost frozen! Look at the poor devils swallow those fish, 
ice and all! Why don’t you cook the fish? Why don’t 
you give them some sort of shelter to sleep in?” 

Father Roland and the Frenchman stared at him as if 
they did not quite catch his meaning. Then a look of 
comprehension swept over the Missioner’s face. He 
chuckled, the chuckle grew, it shook his body, and lie 
laughed—laughed until the forest flung back the echoes of 
his merriment, and even the leathery faces of the Indians 


68 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


crinkled in sympathy. David could see no reason for his 
levity. He looked at Thoreau. His host was grinning 
broadly. 

“God bless my soul!” said the Little Missioner at last. 
5< Starved? Cold? Boil their fish? Give ’em beds /” 
He stopped himself as he saw a flush rising in David s 
face. “Forgive me, David,” he begged, laying a hand on 
the other’s arm. “You can’t understand how funny 
that was—what you said. If you gave those fellows the 
warmest kennels in New York City, lined with bear skins, 
they wouldn’t sleep in them, but would come outside and 
burrow those little round holes in the snow. That’s 
their nature. I’ve felt sorry for them, like you—when the 
thermometer was down to sixty. But it’s no use. As 
for the fish—they want ’em fresh or frozen. I suppose you 
might educate them to eat cooked meat, but it would be 
like making over a lynx or a fox or a wolf. They’re mighty 
comfortable, those dogs, David. That bunch of eight 
over there is mine. They’ll take us north. And I want 
to warn you, don’t put yourself in reach of them until 
they get acquainted with you. They’re not pets, you 
know; I guess they’d appreciate petting just about as 
much as they would boiled fish, or poison. There’s 
nothing on earth like a husky or an Eskimo dog when it 
comes to lookin’ you in the eye with a friendly and lovable 
look and snapping your hand off at the same time. But 
you’ll like ’em, David. You can’t help feeling they’re 
pretty good comrades when you see what they do in the 
traces.” 

Thoreau had shouldered the second gunny sack and now 
led the wav into the thicker spruce and balsam behind the 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 69 


cabin. David and Father Roland followed, the latter ex¬ 
plaining more fully why it was necessary to keep the 
sledge dogs “hard as rocks,” and how the trick was done. 
He was still talking, with the fingers of one hand closed 
about the little plush box in his pocket, when they came to 
the first of the fox pens. He was watching David closely, 
a little anxiously—thrilled by the touch of that box. He 
read men as he read books, seeing much that was not in 
print, and feeling by a wonderful intuitive power emotions 
not visible in a face, and he believed that in David there 
were strange and conflicting forces struggling now for 
mastery. It was not in the surrender of the box that he 
had felt David’s triumph, but in the voluntary sacrifice 
of what that box contained. He wanted to rid himself 
of the picture, and quickly. He was filled with apprehen¬ 
sion lest David should weaken again, and ask for its return. 
The locket meant nothing. It was a bauble—cold, emo¬ 
tionless, easily forgotten; but the other—the picture of 
the woman who had almost destroyed him—was a deadly 
menace, a poison to David’s soul and body as long as it 
remained in his possession, and the Little Missioner’s 
fingers itched to tear it from the velvet casket and destroy 
it. 

He watched his opportunity. As Thoreau tossed three 
fish over the high wire netting of the first pen the French¬ 
man was explaining to David why there were two female 
foxes and one male in each of his nine pens, and why warm 
houses partly covered with earth were necessary for their 
comfort and health, while the sledge dogs required nothing 
more than a bed of snow. Father Roland seized this op¬ 
portunity to drop back toward the cabin, calling in Cree 


70 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


to Mukoki. Five seconds after the cabin concealed him 
from David he had the plush box out of his pocket; 
another five and he had opened it and the locket itself was 
in his hand. And then, his breath coming in a sudden, 
hissing spurt between his teeth, he was looking upon the 
face of the woman. Again in Cree he spoke to Mukoki, 
asking him for his knife. The Indian drew it from his 
sheath and watched in silence while Father Roland ac¬ 
complished his work of destruction. The Missioner’s 
teeth were set tight. There was a strange gleam of fire in 
his eyes. An unspoken malediction rose out of his soul. 
The work was done! He wanted to hurl the yellow trinket, 
shaped so sacrilegiously in the image of a heart, as far as 
he could fling it into the forest. It seemed to burn his 
fingers, and he held for it a personal hatred. But it was 
for Marie! Marie would prize it, and Marie would purify 
it. Against her breast, where beat a heart of his beloved 
Northland, it would cease to be a polluted thing. This 
was his thought as he replaced it in the casket and retraced 
his steps to the fox pens. 

Thoreau was tossing fish into the last pen when Father 
Roland came up. David was not with him. In answer to 
the Missioner’s inquiry he nodded toward the thicker 
growth of the forest where as yet his axe had not scarred 
the trees. 

“He said that he would walk a little distance into the 
timber.” 

Father Roland muttered something that Thoreau did 
not catch, and then, a sudden brightness lighting up his 
eyes: 

“I am going to leave you to-day.” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 71 

“To-day, mon Pere /” Thoreau made a muffled ex¬ 
clamation of astonishment. “To-day? And it is fairly 
well along toward noon!” 

“He cannot travel far.” The Missioner nodded in the 
direction of the unthinned timber. “It will give us four 
hours, between noon and dark. He is soft. You under¬ 
stand? We will make as far as the old trapping shack you 
abandoned two winters ago over on Moose Creek. It is 
only eight miles, but it will be a bit of hardening for him. 
And, besides . . .” 

He was silent for a moment, as if turning a matter over 
again in his own mind. 

“I want to get him away.” 

He turned a searching, quietly analytic gaze upon Tho¬ 
reau to see whether the Frenchman would understand 
without further explanation. 

The fox breeder picked up the empty gunny sack. 

“We will begin to pack the sledge, mon Pfre. There 
must be a good hundred pounds to the dog.” 

As they turned back to the cabin Father Roland cast a 
look over his shoulder to see whether David was returning. 

Three or four hundred yards in the forest David stood 
in a mute and increasing wonder. He was in a tiny open, 
and about him the spruce and balsam hung still as death 
under their heavy cloaks of freshly fallen snow. It was 
as if he had entered unexpectedly into a wonderland of 
amazing beauty, and that from its dark and hidden bowers, 
crusted with theii glittering mantles of white, snow naiads 
must be peeping forth at him, holding their breath for 
fear of betraying themselves to his eyes. There was not 
the chirp of a bisd nor the flutter of a wing—not the 


72 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


breath of a sound to disturb the wonderful silence. He 
was encompassed in a white, soft world that seemed 
tremendously unreal—that for some strange reason made 
him breathe very softly, that made him stand without a 
movement, and made him listen, as though he had come 
to the edge of the universe and that there were mysterious 
things to hear, and possibly to see, if he remained very 
quiet. It was the first sensation of its kind he had ever 
experienced; it was disquieting, and yet soothing; it 
filled him with an indefinable uneasiness, and yet with a 
strange yearning. He stood, in these moments, at the 
inscrutable threshold of the great North; he felt the enigmat¬ 
ical, voiceless spirit of it; it passed into his blood; it made 
his heart beat a little faster; it made him afraid, and yet 
daring. In his breast the spirit of adventure was waking—^ 
had awakened; he felt the call of the Northland, and it 
alarmed even as it thrilled him. He knew, now, that this 
was the beginning—the door opening to him—of a world 
that reached for hundreds of miles up there. Yes, there 
were thousands of miles of it, many thousands; white, as 
he saw it here; beautiful, terrible, and deathly still. And 
into this world Father Roland had asked him to go, and 
he had as good as pledged himself! 

Before he could think, or stop himself, he had laughed. 
For an instant it struck him like mirth in a tomb, an 
unpleasant, soulless sort of mirth, for his laugh had in it a 
jarring incredulity, a mocking lack of faith in himself. 
What right had he to enter into a world like that? Why, 
even now, his legs ached because of his exertion in furrow¬ 
ing through a few hundred steps of foot-and-a-half snow! 

But the laugh succeeded in bringing him back into the 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 73 


reality of things. He started at right angles, pushed into 
the maze of white-robed spruce and balsam, and turned 
back in the direction of the cabin over a new trail. He 
was not in a good humour. There possessed him an in¬ 
growing and acute feeling of animosity toward himself. 
Since the day—or night—fate had drawn that great, 
black curtain over his life, shutting out his sun, he had 
been drifting; he had been floating along on currents of the 
least resistance, making no fight, and, in the completeness 
of his grief and despair, allowing himself to disintegrate 
physically as well as mentally. He had sorrowed with 
himself; he had told himself that everything worth having 
was gone; but now, for the first time, he cursed himself. 
To-day—these few hundred yards out in the snow—had 
come as a test. They had proved his weakness. He had 
degenerated into less than a man! He was . . . 

He clenched his hands inside his thick mittens, and a 
rage burned within him like a fire. Go with Father 
Roland? Go up into that world where he knew that the 
one great law of life was the survival of the fittest? Yes, 
he would go ! This body and brain of his needed their 
punishment—and they should have it! He would go. 
And his body would fight for it, or die. The thought gave 
him an atrocious satisfaction. He was filled with a sudden 
contempt for himself. If Father Roland had known, he 
would have uttered a paean of joy. 

Out of the darkness of the humour into which he had 
fallen, David was suddenly flung by a low and ferocious 
growl. He had stepped around a young balsam that stood 
like a seven-foot ghost in his path, and found himself face to 
face with a beast that was cringing at the butt of a thick 


74 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


spruce. It was a dog. The animal was not more than 
four or five short paces from him, and was chained to the 
tree. David surveyed him with sudden interest, won¬ 
dering first of all why he was larger than the other dogs. 
As he lay crouched there against his tree, his ivory fangs 
gleaming between half-uplifted lips, he looked like a 
great wolf. In the other dogs David had witnessed an 
avaricious excitement at the approach of men, a hungry 
demand for food, a straining at leash ends, a whining and 
snarling comradeship. Here he saw none of those things. 
The big, wolf-like beast made no sound after that first 
growl, and made no movement. And yet every muscle 
in his body seemed gathered in a tense readiness to spring, 
and his gleaming fangs threatened. He was ferocious, 
and yet shrinking; ready to leap, and yet afraid. He was 
like a thing at bay—a hunted creature that had been 
prisoned. And then David noticed that he had but one 
good eye. It was bloodshot, balefully alert, and fixed on 
him like a round ball of fire. The lids had closed over his 
other eye; they were swollen; there was a big lump just 
over where the eye should have been. Then he saw that 
the beast’s lips were cut and bleeding. There was blood 
on the snow; and suddenly the big brute covered his fangs 
to give a racking cough, as though he had swallowed a 
sharp fish-bone, and fresh blood dripped out of his 
mouth on the snow between his forepaws. One of these 
forepaws was twisted; it had been broken. 

“You poor devil!” said David aloud. 

He sat down on a birch log within six feet of the end of 
the chain, and looked steadily into the big husky’s one 
bloodshot eye as he said again: 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 75 


“You poor devil!” 

Baree, the dog, did not understand. It puzzled him 
that this man did not carry a club. He was used to clubs. 
So far back as he could remember the club had been the 
one dominant thing in his life. It was a club that had 
closed his eye. It was a club that had broken one of his 
teeth and cut his lips, and it was a club that had beat 
against his ribs until—now—the blood came up into his 
throat and choked him, and dripped out of his mouth. 
But this man had no club, and he looked friendly. 

“You poor devil!” said David for the third time. 

Then he added, dark indignation in his voice: 

“What, in God’s name, has Thoreau been doing to 
you?” 

There was something sickening in the spectacle—that 
battered, bleeding, broken creature huddling there against 
the tree, coughing up the red stuff that discoloured the 
snow. Loving dogs, he was not afraid of them, and 
forgetting Father Roland’s warning he rose from the log 
and went nearer. From where he stood, looking down, 
Baree could have reached his throat. But he made no 
movement, unless it was that his thickly haired body was 
trembling a little. His one red eye looked steadily up at 
David. 

For the fourth time David spoke; 

“You poor, God-forsaken brute!” 

There was friendliness, compassion, wonderment in his 
voice, and he held down a hand that he had drawn from 
one of the thick mittens. Another moment and he would 
have bent over, but a cry stopped him so sharply and sud¬ 
denly that he jumped back. 


76 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


Thoreau stood within ten feet of him, horrified. He 
clutched a rifle in one hand. 

“Back—back, m’sieu!” he cried sharply. “For the 
love of God, jump back.” 

He swung his rifle into the crook of his arm. David did 
not move, and from Thoreau he looked down coolly at the 
dog. Baree was a changed beast. His one eye was 
fastened upon the fox breeder. His bared, bleeding lips 
revealed inch-long fangs between which there came now a 
low and menacing snarl. The tawny crest along his spine 
was like a brush; from a puzzled toleration of David his 
posture and look had changed into deadly hatred for 
Thoreau, and fear of him. For a moment after his first 
warning the Frenchman’s voice seemed to stick in his 
throat as he saw what he believed to be David’s fatal dis¬ 
regard of his peril. He did not speak to him again. His 
eyes were on the dog. Slowly he raised his rifle; David 
heard the click of the hammer—and Baree heard it. 
There was something in the sharp, metallic thrill of it that 
stirred his brute instinct. His lips fell over his fangs, he 
whined, and then, on his belly, he dragged himself slowly 
toward David! 

It was a miracle that Thoreau the Frenchman looked 
upon then. He would have staked his very soul—wag¬ 
ered his hopes of paradise against a babiche thread—that 
what he saw could never have happened between Baree 
and man. In utter amazement he lowered his gun. 
David, looking down, was smiling into that one, wide-open, 
bloodshot eye of Baree’s, his hand reaching out. Foot by 
foot Baree slunk to him on his belly, and when at last he 
was at David’s feet he faced Thoreau again, his terrible 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DQONE 77 

teeth snarling, a low, rumbling growl in his throat. David 
reached down and touched him, even as he heard the fox 
breeder make an incoherent sound in his beard. At the 
caress of his hand a great shudder passed through Baree’s 
body, as if he had been stung. That touch was the con¬ 
necting link through which passed the electrifying thrill of 
a man’s soul reaching out to a brute instinct. 

Baree had found a man friend! 

When David stepped away from him to Thoreau’s side 
as much of the Frenchman’s face as was not hidden under 
his beard was of a curious ashen pallor. He seemed to 
make a struggle before he could get his voice. 

And then: “M’sieu, I tell you it is incredible! I cannot 
believe what I have seen. It was a miracle!” 

He shuddered. David was looking at him, a bit puzzled 
He could not quite comprehend the fear that had pos¬ 
sessed him. Thoreau saw this, and pointing to Baree—- 
a gesture that brought a snarl from the beast—he said: 

“He is bad, m’sieu, bad! He is the worst dog in all this 
country. He was born an outcast—among the wolves— 
and his heart is filled with murder. He is a quarter wolf, 
and you can’t club it out of him. Half a dozen masters 
have owned him, and none of them has been able to club 
it out of him. I, myself, have beaten him until he lay as 
if dead, but it did no good. He has killed two of my dogs. 
He has leaped at my throat. I am afraid of him. I 
chained him to that tree a month ago to keep him away 
from the other dogs, and since then I have not been able 
to unleash him. He would tear me into pieces. Yester¬ 
day I beat him until he was almost dead, and still he was 
ready to go at my throat. So J am determined to kill him. 


78 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


He is no good. Step a little aside, m’sieu, while I put a 
bullet through his head!” 

He raised his rifle again. David put a hand on it. 

“I can unleash him,” he said. 

Before the other could speak, he had walked boldly to 
the tree. Baree did not turn his head—did not for an 
instant take his eye from Thoreau. There came the click 
of the snap that fastened the chain around the body of the 
spruce, and David stood with the loose end of the chain in 
his hand. 

“There!” 

He laughed a little proudly. 

“And I didn’t use a club,” he added. 

Thoreau gasped “Mon Dieul ” and sat down on the 
birch log as though the strength had gone from his legs. 

David rattled the chain and then re-fastened it about 
the spruce. Baree was still watching Thoreau, who sat 
staring at him as if the beast had suddenly changed his 
shape and species. 

In David’s breast there was the thrill of a new triumph. 
He had done it unconsciously, without fear, and without 
feeling that there had been any great danger. In those 
few minutes something of his old self had returned into 
him; he felt a new excitement pumping the blood through 
his heart, and he felt the warm glow of it in his body. 
Baree had awakened something within him—Baree and 
the club. He went to Thoreau, who had risen from the 
log. He laughed again, a bit exultantly. 

“I am going north with Father Roland,” he said. “Will 
you let me have the dog, Thoreau? It will save you the 
trouble of killing him.” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 79 


Thoreau stared at him blankly for a moment before he 
answered. 

“That dog? You? Into the North?” He shot a look 
full of hatred and disgust at Baree. “Would you risk it, 

y • o yy 

m sieur 

“Yes. It is an adventure I would very much like to 
try. You may think it strange, Thoreau, but that dog— 
ugly and fierce as he is—has found a place with me. I like 
him. And I fancy he has begun to like me.” 

“But look at his eye, m’sieu-” 

“Which eye?” demanded David. “The one you have 
shut with a club?” 

“He deserved it,” muttered Thoreau. “He snapped at 
my hand. But I mean the other eye, m’sieu—the one that 
is glaring at us now like a red bloodstone with the heart of 
a devil in it! I tell you he is a quarter wolf . . . ” 

“And the broken paw. I suppose that was done by a 
club, too?” interrupted David. 

“It was broken like that when I traded for him a year 
ago, m’sieu. I have not maimed him. And . . - 

yes, you may have the beast! May the saints preserve 
you!” 

“And his name?” 

“The Indian who owned him as a puppy five years ago 
called him Baree, which among the Dog Ribs means Wild 
Blood. He should have been caked The Devil.” 

Thoreau shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter 
and its consequences were now off his hands, and turned 
in the direction of the cabin. As he followed the French¬ 
man, David looked back at Baree. The big husky had 
risen from the snow. He was standing at the full length 


80 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


his chain, and as David disappeared among the spruce 
a low whine that was filled with a strange yearning fol¬ 
lowed him. He did not hear the whine, but there came to 
him distinctly a moment later the dog’s racking cough, 
and he shivered, and his eyes burned into Thoreau’s 
broad back as he thought of the fresh blood-clots that were 
staining the white snow. 


CHAPTER VIH 


M UCH to Thoreau’s amazement Father Roland 
made no objection to Davids ownership of 
Baree, and when the Frenchman described with 
many gesticulations of wonder what had happened between 
that devil-dog and the man, he was still more puzzled by 
the look of satisfaction in the Little Missioner’s face. In 
David there had come the sudden awakening of something 
which had for a long time been dormant within him, and 
Father Roland saw this change, and felt it, even before 
David said, when Thoreau had turned away with a darkly 
suggestive shrug of his shoulders: 

“That poor devil of a beast is down and out, mon Pere. 
1 have never been so bad as that; never. Kill him? Bah! 
If this magical north country of yours will make a man 
out of a human derelict it will surely work some sort of a 
transformation in a dog that has been clubbed into im¬ 
becility. Will it not?” 

It was not the David of yesterday or the day before that 
was speaking. There was a passion in his voice, a deep 
contempt, a half taunt, a tremble of anger. There was a 
flush in his cheeks, too, and a spark of fire in his eyes. In 
his heart Father Roland whispered to himself that this 
change in David was like a conflagration, and he rejoiced 
without speaking, fearing that words might quench the 
»ff it 


81 



82 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


David was looking at him as if he expected an answer. 

“What an accursed fool a man is to waste his soul and 
voice in lamentation—especially his voice,” he went on 
harshly, his teeth gleaming for an instant in a bitter smile. 
“One ought to act and not whine. That beast back there 
is ready to act. He would tear Thoreau’s jugular out if 
he had half a chance. And I . . . why, I sneaked off 

like a whipped cur. That’s why Baree is better than I 
am, even though he is nothing more than a four-footed 
brute. In that room I should have had the moral courage 
that Baree has; I should have killed—killed them both!” 
He shrugged his shoulders. “I am quite convinced that 
it would have been justice, mon Fere . What do you 
think?” 

The Missioner smiled enigmatically. 

“The soul of many a man has gone from behind steel 
bars to heaven or I vastly miss my guess,” he said. “ But 
—we don’t like the thought of steel bars, do we, David? 
Man-made laws and justice don’t always run tandem. 
But God evens things up in the final balance. You’ll 
live to see that. He’s back there now, meting out your 
vengeance to them. Your vengeance. Do you under¬ 
stand? And you won’t be called to take a hand in the 
business.” Suddenly he pointed toward the cabin, where 
Thoreau and Mukoki were already at work packing a 
sledge. “ It’s a glorious day. We start right after dinner. 
Let us get your things in a bundle.” 

David made no answer, but three minutes later he was 
on his knees unlocking his trunk, with Father Roland 
standing close beside him. Something of the humour of 
the situation possessed him as he flung out, one by one, 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 83 


the various articles of his worthless apparel, and when he 
had all but finished he looked up into the Missioner’s face. 
Father Roland was staring into the trunk, an expression 
of great surprise in his countenance which slowly changed 
to one of eager joy. He made a sudden dive, and stood 
back with a pair of boxing gloves in his hands. From the 
gloves he looked at David, and then back at the gloves, 
fondling them as if they had been alive, his hands almost 
trembling at the smooth touch of them, his eyes glowing 
like the eyes of a child that had come into possession of a 
wonderful toy. David reached into the trunk and pro* 
duced a second pair. The Missioner seized upon them. 

“Dear Heaven, what a gift from the gods!” he chortled. 
“David, you will teach me to use them?” There was 
almost anxiety in his manner as he added, “ You know how 
to use them well, David?” 

“My chief pastime at home was boxing,” assured 
David. There was a touch of pride in his voice. “ It is a 
scientific recreation. I loved it—that, and swimming. 
Yes, I will teach you.” 

Father Roland went out of the room a moment later, 
chuckling mysteriously, with the four gloves hugged 
against the pit of his stomach. 

David followed a little later, all his belongings in one of 
the leather bags. For some time he had hesitated over 
the portrait of the Girl; twice he had shut the lock on it; 
the third time he placed it in the big, breast pocket inside 
the coat Father Roland had provided for him, making a 
mental apology for that act by assuring himself that sooner 
or later he would show the picture to the Missioner, so 
would want it near at hand. Father Roland had disposed 


84 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


of the gloves, and introduced David to the rest of his 
equipment when he came from the cabin. It was very 
business-like, this accoutrement that was to be the final 
physical touch to his transition; it did not allow of skep¬ 
ticism; about it there was also a quiet and cold touch of 
romance. The rifle chilled David’s bare fingers when he 
touched it. It was short-barrelled, but heavy in the 
breech, with an appearance of indubitable efficiency about 
it. It looked like an honest weapon to David, who was 
unaccustomed to firearms—and this was more than he 
could say for the heavy, 38-calibre automatic pistol which 
Father Roland thrust into his hand, and which looked and 
felt murderously mysterious. He frankly confessed his 
ignorance of these things, and the Missioner chuckled good- 
humouredly as he buckled the belt and holster about his 
waist and told him on which hip to keep the pistol, and 
where to carry the leather sheath that held a long and 
keen-edged hunting knife. Then he turned to the snow 
shoes. They were the long, narrow, bush-country shoe. 
He placed them side by side on the snow and showed 
David how to fasten his moccasined feet in them without 
using his hands. For three quarters of an hour after that, 
out in the soft, deep snow in the edge of the spruce, he 
gave him his first lesson in that slow, swinging, outstepping 
stride of the north-man on the trail. At first it was em¬ 
barrassing for David, with Thoreau and the Indians 
grinning openly, and Marie’s face peering cautiously and 
joyously from the cabin door. Three times he entangled 
his feet hopelessly and floundered like a great fish in the 
snow; then he caught the “swing” of it and at the end of 
half an hour began to find a pleasurable exhilaration, ever 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 85 

excitement, in his ability to skim over the feathery surface 
of this great white sea without so much as sinking to his 
ankle bones. When he slipped the shoes off and stood 
them up beside his rifle against the cabin, he was panting. 
His heart was pounding. His lungs drank in the cold, 
balsam-scented air like a suction pump and expelled each 
breath with the sibilancy of steam escaping from a valve. 

“Winded!” he gasped. And then, gulping for breath 
as he looked at Father Roland, he demanded: “How the 
devil am I going to keep up with you fellows on the trail? 
I’ll go bust inside of a mile!” 

“And every time you go bust we’ll load you on the 
sledge,” comforted the Missioner, his round face glowing 
with enthusiastic approval. “You’ve done finely, David, 
Within a fortnight you’ll be travelling twenty miles a day 
on snow shoes.” 

He suddenly seemed to think of something that he had 
forgotten and fidgeted with his mittens in his hesitation, as 
if there lay an unpleasant duty ahead of him. Then he 
said: 

“If there are any letters to write, David . . . any 

business matters ...” 

“There are no letters,” cut in David quickly. “I 
attended to my affairs some weeks ago. I am ready.” 

With a frozen whitefish he returned to Baree. The dog 
scented him before the crunch of his footsteps could be 
heard in the snow, and when he came out from the thick 
spruce and balsam into the little open, Baree was stretched 
out flat on his belly, his gaunt gray muzzle resting on the 
snow between his forepaws. He made no movement as 
David drew near, except that curious shivers ran through 


86 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


his body, and his throat twitched. Thoreau would have 
analyzed that impassive posture as one of waiting and 
watchful treachery; David saw in it a strange yearning, a 
deep fear, a hope. Baree, outlawed by man, battered and 
bleeding as he lay there, felt for perhaps the first time in 
his life the thrilling presence of a friend—a man friend. 
David approached boldly, and stood over him. He had 
forgotten the Frenchman’s warning. He was not afraid. 
He leaned over and one of his mittened hands touched 
Baree’s neck. A tremor shot through the dog that was 
like an electric shock; a snarl gathered in his throat, broke 
down, and ended in a low whine. He lay as if dead under 
the weight of David’s hand. Not until David had ceased 
talking to him, and had disappeared once more in the di¬ 
rection of the cabin, did Baree begin devouring the frozen 
whitefish. 

Father Roland meditated in some perplexity when it 
came to the final question of Baree. 

“We can’t put him in with the team,” he protested 
“All my dogs would be dead before we reached God’s 
Lake.” 

David had been thinking of that. 

“He will follow me,” he said confidently. “We’ll 
simply turn him loose when we’re ready to start.” 

The Missioner nodded indulgently. Thoreau, who had 
overheard, shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. He 
hated Baree, the beast that would not yield to a club, and 
he muttered gruffly: 

“And to-night he will join the wolves, m’sieu, and prey 
like the very devil on my traps. There will be only one 
cure for that—a fox-bait!—poison!” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 87 

And the last hour seemed to prove that what Thoreau 
had said was true. After dinner the three of them went 
to Baree, and David unfastened the chain from the big 
husky’s collar. For a few moments the dog did not seem 
to sense his freedom; then, like a shot—so unexpectedly 
that he almost took David off his feet—he leaped over the 
birch log and disappeared in the forest. The Frenchman 
was amused. 

“The wolves,” he reminded softly. “He will be with 
them to-night, m’sieu—that outlaw!” 

Not until the crack of Mukoki’s long, caribou-gut whip 
had set the Missioner’s eight dogs tense and alert in their 
traces did Father Roland return for a moment into the 
cabin to give Marie the locket. He came back quickly, 
and at a signal from him Mukoki wound up the 9-foot lash 
of his whip and set out ahead of the dogs. They followed 
him slowly and steadily, keeping the broad runners of the 
sledge in the trail he made. The Missioner dropped in 
immediately behind the sledge, and David behind him. 
Thoreau spoke a last word to David, in a voice intended for 
his ears alone. 

“It is e long way to God’s Lake, m’sieu, and you are 
going with a strange man—a strange man. Some day, il 
you have not forgotten Pierre Thoreau, you may tell me 
what it has been a long time in my heart to know. The 
saints be with you, m’sieu!” 

He dropped back. His voice rolled after them in a last 
farewell, in French, and in Cree, and as David followed 
close behind the Missioner he wondered what Thoreau’s 
mysterious words had meant, and why he had not spoken 
them until that final moment of their departure. “A 


88 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


strange man! The saints be with you!” That last had 
seemed to him almost a warning. He looked at Father 
Roland’s broad back; for the first time he noticed how 
heavy and powerful his shoulders were for his height. 
Then the forest swallowed them—a vast, white, engulfing 
world of silence and mystery. What did it hold for him? 
What did it portend? His blood was stirred by an urn 
familiar and subdued excitement. An almost unconscious 
movement carried one of his mittened hands to his breast 
pocket. Through the thickness of his coat he could feel 
it—the picture. It did not seem like a dead thing. It 
beat with life. It made him strangely unafraid of what 
might be ahead of him. 

Back at the door of the cabin Thoreau stood with one 
of his big arms encircling Marie’s slim shoulders. 

“I tell you it is like taking the life of a puppy, ma 
cherie” he was saying. “It is inconceivable. It is 
bloodthirsty. And yet . . .” 

He opened the door behind them. 

“They are gone,” he finished. “Ka Sakhet —they are 
gone—and they will not come back!” 


CHAPTER IX 


I N SPITE of the portentous significance of this day 
in his life David could not help seeing and feeling in 
his suddenly changed environment, as he puffed 
along behind Father Roland, something that was neither 
adventure nor romance, but humour. A whimsical hum¬ 
our at first, but growing grimmer as his thoughts sped. 
All his life he had lived in a great city, he had been a part 
of its life—a discordant note in it, and yet a part of it for 
all that. He had been a fixture in a certain lap of luxury. 
That luxury had refined him. It had manicured him down 
to a fine point of civilization. A fine point! He wanted 
to laugh, but he had need of all his breath as he clip-clip - 
Hipped on his snow shoes behind the Missioner. This 
Was the last thing in the world he had dreamed of, all this 
snow, all this emptiness that loomed up ahead of him, a 
great world filled only with trees and winter. He dis¬ 
liked winter; he had always possessed a physical antipathy 
for snow; romance, for him, was environed in warm climes 
and sunny seas. He had made a mistake in telling Father 
Roland that he was going to British Columbia—a great 
mistake. Undoubtedly he would have kept on. Japan 
had been in his mind. And now here he was headed 
straight for the north pole—the Arctic Ocean. It was 
enough to make him want to laugh. Enough to make any 
sane person laugh. Even now, only half a mile from 


90 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


Thoreau’s cabin, his knees were beginning to ache and his 
ankles were growing heavy. It was ridiculous. Incon¬ 
ceivable, as the Frenchman had said to Marie. He was 
soft. He was only half a man. How long would he last? 
How long before he would have to cry quits, like a whipped 
boy? How long before his legs would crumple up under 
him, and his lungs give out? How long before Father 
Roland, hiding his contempt, would have to send him 
back? 

A sense of shame—shame and anger—swept through 
him, heating his brain, setting his teeth hard, filling him 
again with a grim determination. For the second time 
that day his fighting blood rose. It surged through his 
veins in a flood, beating down the old barriers, clearing 
away the obstructions of his doubts and his fears, and 
filling him with the desire to go on—the desire to fight it 
out, to punish himself as he deserved to be punished, and 
to win in the end. Father Roland, glancing back in 
benignant solicitude, saw the new glow in David’s eyes. 
He saw, also, his parted lips and the quickness of his 
breath. With a sharp command he stopped Mukoki and 
the dogs. 

“Half a mile at a time is enough for a beginner,” he 
said to David. “E[ick off yous shoes and ride the next 
half mile.” 

David shook his head. 

“Go on,” he said, tersely, saving his wind. “I’m just 
finding myself.” 

Father Roland loaded and lighted his pipe. The aroma 
of the tobacco filled David’s nostrils as they went on. 
Clouds of smoke wreathed the Little Missioner’s shoulders 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 91 


as he followed the trail ahead of him. It was comforting, 
that smoke. It warmed David with a fresh desire. His 
exertion was clearing out his lungs. He was inhaling 
balsam and spruce, a mighty tonic of dry forest air, and 
he felt also the craving to smoke. But he knew that he 
could not afford the waste of breath. His snow shoes 
were growing heavier and heavier, and back of his knees 
the tendons seemed preparing to snap. He kept on, at 
last counting his steps. He was determined to make a 
mile. He was ready to groan when a sudden twist in the 
trail brought them out of the forest to the edge of a lake 
whose frozen surface stretched ahead of them for miles. 
Mukoki stopped the dogs. With a gasp David floundered 
to the sledge and sat down. 

“Finding myself,” he managed to say. “Just —finding 
myself!” 

It was a triumph for him—the last half of that mile. 
He knew it. He felt it. Through the white haze of his 
breath he looked out over the lake. It was wonderfully 
clear, and the sun was shining. The surface of the lake 
was like an untracked carpet of white sprinkled thickly 
with tiny diamonds where the sunlight fell on its countless 
billions of snow crystals. Three or four miles away he 
could see the dark edge of the forest on the other side. 
Up and down the lake the distance was greater. He had 
n^ver seen anything like it. It was marvellous—like a 
dream picture. And he was not cold as he looked at it. 
He was warm, even uncomfortably warm. The air he 
breathed was like a new kind of fuel. It gave him the 
peculiar sensation of feeling larger inside; he seemed to 
drink it in; it expanded his lungs; he could feel his heart 


92 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


pumping with an audible sound. There was nothing in 
the majesty and wonder of the scene about him to make 
him laugh, but he laughed. It was exultation, an involun¬ 
tary outburst of the change that was working within him. 
He felt, suddenly, that a dark and purposeless world had 
slipped behind him. It was gone. It was as if he had 
come out of a dark and gloomy cavern, in which the air 
had been vitiated and in which he had been cramped for 
breath—a cavern which fluttered with the uneasy ghosts 
of things, poisonous things. Here was the sun. A sky 
blue as sapphire. A great expanse. A wonder-world 
Into this he had escaped! 

That was the thought in his mind as he looked at Fathei 
Roland. The Little Missioner was looking at him with an 
effulgent satisfaction in his face, a satisfaction that was 
half pride, as though he had achieved something that was 
to his own personal glory. 

“You’ve beat me, David,” he exulted. “The first time 
I had snow shoes on I didn’t make one half that distance 
before I was tangled up like a fish in a net!” He turned 
to Mukoki. “Meyoo iss e chikao /” he cried. “Remem¬ 
ber?” and the Indian nodded, his leathery face breaking 
into a grin. 

David felt a new pleasure at their approbation. He had 
evidently done well, exceedingly well. And he had been 
afraid of himself! Apprehension gave vray to confidence. 
He was beginning to experience the exquisite thrill of 
fighting against odds. 

He made no objection this time when Father Roland 
made a place for him on the sledge. 

“We’ll have four miles of this lake,” the Missioner ex- 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 95 

plained to him, “and the dogs will make it in an hour.. 
Mukoki and I will both break trail.” 

As they set off David found his first opportunity to see 
the real Northland in action—the clean, sinuous movement 
of the men ahead of him, the splendid eagerness with 
which the long, wolfish fine of beasts stretched forth in 
their traces and followed in the snow-shoe trail. There 
was something imposing about it all, something that 
struck deep within him and roused strange thoughts. 
This that he saw was not the mere labour of man and 
beast; it was not the humdrum toil of life, not the daily 
slaving of living creatures for existence—for food, and 
drink, and a sleeping place. It had risen above that. He 
had seen ships and castles rise up from heaps of steel and 
stone; achievements of science and the handiwork of 
genius had interested and sometimes amazed him, but 
never had he looked upon physical effort that thrilled him 
as did this that he was looking upon now. There was 
almost the spirit of the epic about it. They were the 
survival of the fittest—-these men and dogs. They had 
gone through the great test of life in the raw, as the 
pyramids and the sphinx had outlived the ordeals of the 
centuries; they were different; they were proven; they were 
of another kind of flesh and blood than he had known—and 
they fascinated him. They stood for more than romance 
and adventure, for more than tragedy or possible joy; 
they were making no fight for riches—no fight for power, 
or fame, or great personal achievement. Their struggle 
in this great, white world—terrible in its emptiness, its 
vastness, and its mercilessness for the weak—was simply 
struggle that they might live. 


94 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


The thought staggered him. Could there be joy in 
that—in a mere existence without the thousand pleasures 
and luxuries and excitements that he had known? He 
drank deeply of the keen air as he asked himself the ques¬ 
tion. His eyes rested on the shaggy, undulating backs of 
the big huskies; he noted their half-open jaws, the sharp 
alertness of their pointed ears, the almost joyous unction 
with which they entered into their task, their eagerness 
to keep their load close upon the heels of their masters. 
He heard Mukoki’s short, sharp, and unnecessary com¬ 
mands, his hi-yi’s and his ki-yi’s, as though he were crying 
out for no other reason than from sheer physical exuber¬ 
ance. He saw Father Roland’s face turned backward for a 
moment, and it was smiling. They were happy—now I 
Men and beasts were happy. And he could see no reason 
for their happiness except that their blood was pounding 
through their veins, even as it was pounding through his 
own. That was it—the blood. The heart. The lungs. The 
brain. All were clear—clear and unfettered in that marvel¬ 
lous air and sunlight, washed clean by the swift pulse of life. 
It was a wonderful world! A glorious world! He was 
almost on the point of crying aloud his discovery. 

The thrill grew in him as he found time now to look 
about. Under him the broad, steel runners of the 
sledge made a cold, creaking sound as they slipped 
over the snow that lay on the ice of the lake; he 
heard the swift tap , tap , tap of the dogs’ feet, their 
panting breath that was almost like laughter, low throat 
whines, and the steady swish of the snow shoes ahead. 
Beyond those sounds a vast silence encompassed him. 
He looked out into it, east and west to the dark rims of 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 95 


forest, north and south over the distance of that diamond- 
sprinkled tundra of unbroken white. He drew out his 
pipe, loaded it with tobacco, and began to smoke. The 
bitterness of the weed was gone. It was delicious. He 
puffed luxuriously. And then, suddenly, as he looked at 
the purplish bulwarks of the forest, his mind swept back. 
For the first time since that night many months ago he 
thought of the Woman—the Golden Goddess—without a 
red-hot fire in his brain. He thought of her coolly. This 
new world was already giving back to him a power of 
analysis, a perspective, a healthier conception of truths 
and measurements. What a horrible blot they had made 
in his life—that man and that woman! What a foul trick 
they had played him! What filth they had wallowed in! 
And he—he had thought her the most beautiful creature 
in the world, an angel, a thing to be worshipped. He 
laughed, almost without sound, his teeth biting hard on 
the stem of his pipo. And the world he was looking upon 
laughed; the snow diamonds, lying thickly as dust, laughed; 
there was laughter in the sun, the warmth of chuckling 
humour in those glowing walls of forest, laughter in the 
blue sky above. 

His hands gripped hard. 

In this world he knew there could not be another woman 
such as she. Here, in all this emptiness and glory, her 
shallow soul would have shrieked in agony; she would 
have shrivelled up and died. It was too clean. Too 
white. Too pure. It would have frightened her, tor¬ 
tured her. She could not have found the poison she re¬ 
quired to give her life. Her unclean desires would have 
driven her mad. So he arraigned her, terribly, without 


96 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


malice, and without pity. And then, like the quieting 
touch of a gentle hand in his brain, came the thought of 
the other woman—the Girl—whose picture he carried in 
his pocket. This was her world that he was entering. 
She was up there—somewhere—and he looked over the 
barriers of the forest to the northwest. Hundreds of 
miles away. A thousand. It was a big world, so vast 
that he still could not comprehend it. But she was there, 
living, breathing, alive! A sudden impulse made him 
draw the picture from his pocket. He held it down be¬ 
hind a bale, so that Father Roland would not chance to 
see it if he looked back. He unwrapped the picture, and 
ceased to puff at his pipe. The Girl was wonderful to-day r 
under the sunlight and the blue halo of the skies, and she 
wanted to speak to him. That thought always came to 
him first of all when he looked at her. She wanted to 
speak. Her lips were trembling, her eyes were looking 
straight into his, the sun above him seemed to gleam in her 
hair. It was as if she knew of the thoughts that were in 
his mind, and of the fight he was making; as though through 
space she had seen him, and watched him, and wanted 
to cry out for him the way to come. There was a curious 
tremble in his fingers as he restored the picture to his 
pocket. He whispered something. His pipe had gone 
out. In the same moment a sharp cry from Father Roland 
startled him. The dogs halted suddenly. The creaking 
of the sledge runners ceased. 

Father Roland had turned his face down the lake, and 
was pointing. 

“Look!” he cried. 

David jumped from the sledge and stared back ove* 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 97 

their trail. The scintillating gleams of the snow crystals 
were beginning to prick his eyes, and for a few moments he 
could see nothing new He heard a muffled ejaculation of 
surprise from Mukoki, And then, far back—probably 
half a mile—he saw a dark object travelling slowly toward 
them. It stopped. It was motionless as a dark rock now. 
dose beside him the Little Missioner said: 

“You’ve won again, David. Baree is following us!” 

The dog came no nearer as they watched. After a 
moment David pursed his lips and sent back a curious, 
piercing whistle. In days to come Baree was to recognize 
that call, but he gave no attention to it now. For several 
minutes they stood gazing back at him. When they were 
ready to go on David for a third time that day put on his 
snow shoes. His task seemed less difficult. He was 
getting the “swing” of the shoes, and his breath came 
more easily. At the end of half an hour Father Roland 
halted the team again to give him a “winding” spell. 
Baree had come nearer. He was not more than a quarter 
of a mile behind It was three o’clock when they struck 
off the lake into the edge of the forest to the northwest. 
The sun had grown cold and pale. The snow crystals no 
longer sparkled so furiously. In the forest there was 
gathering a gray, silent gloom. They halted again in the 
edge of that gloom. The Missioner slipped off his mittens 
and filled his pipe with fresh tobacco. The pipe fell from 
his fingers and buried itself in the soft snow at his feet. 
As he bent down for it Father Roland said quite audibly: 

“Damn!” 

He was smiling when he rose. David, also, was smiling. 

“I was thinking,” he said—as though the other had de- 


98 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


manded an explanation of his thoughts—“ what a curious 
man of God you are, mon Pere ! ” 

The Little Missioner chuckled, and then he muttered* 
half to himself as he lighted the tobacco, “True—very 
true.” When the top of the bowl was glowing, he added: 
“How are your legs? It is still a good mile to the shack.* 
“I am going to make it or drop/' declared David. 

He wanted to ask a question. It had been in his mind 
for some time, and he burned with a strange eagerness to 
have it answered. He looked back, and saw Baree circling 
slowly over the surface of the lake toward the forest. 
Casually he inquired: 

“How far is it to Tavish’s, mon Pfre ?” 

“Four days,” said the Missioner. “Four days, if we 
make good time, and another week from there to God’s 
Lake. I have paid Tavish a visit in five days, and once 
Tavish made God’s Lake in two days and a night with 
seven dogs. Two days and a night! Through darkness 
he came—darkness and a storm. That is what fear will 
do, David. Fear drove him. I have promised to tell you 
about it to-night. You must know, to understand him. 
He is a strange man—a very strange man!” 

He spoke to Mukoki in Cree, and the Indian responded 
with a sharp command to the dogs. The huskies sprang 
from their bellies and strained forward in their traces. 
The Cree picked his way slowly ahead of them. Fathei 
Roland dropped in behind him. Again David followed 
the sledge. He was struck with wonder at the suddenness 
with which the sun had gone out. In the thick forest it 
was like the beginning of night. The deep shadows and 
darkly growing caverns of gloom seemed to give birth t? 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 99 


new sounds. He heard the whit, whit , whit, of something 
close to him, and the next moment a great snow owl flitted 
like a ghostly apparition over his head; he heard the patter 
of snow as it fell from the bending limbs; from out of a 
patch of darkness two trees, rubbing slightly against each 
other, emitted a shivering wail that startled him—it had 
seemed so like the cry of a child. He was straining his 
ears so tensely to hear, and his eyes to see, that he forgot 
the soreness of his knees and ankles. Now and then the 
dogs stopped while Mukoki and the Missioner dragged a 
log or a bit of brushwood from their path. During one of 
these intervals there came to them, from a great distance, 
a long, mournful howl. 

“A wolf! ” said Father Roland, his face a gray shadow as 
he nodded at David. “Listen!” 

From behind them came another cry. It was Baree. 

They went on, circling around the edge of a great wind¬ 
fall. A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the 
spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their 
heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were 
pelting them from above. Again and again David caught 
the swift, ghostly flutter of the snow owls; three times he 
heard the wolf-howl; once again Baree’s dismal, homeless 
cry; and then they came suddenly out of the thick gloom 
of the forest into the twilight gray of a clearing. Twenty 
paces from them was a cabin. The dogs stopped. Father 
Roland fumbled at his big silver watch, and held it close up 
to his eyes. 

“Half-past four,” he said. “Fairly good time for a be¬ 
ginner, David!” 

He broke into a cheerful whistle. The dogs were whin- 


100 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


ing and snapping like joyous puppies as Mukoki unfastened 
them. The Cree himself was voluble in a chuckling and 
meaningless way. There was a great contentment in the 
air, an indefinable inspiration that seemed to lift the gloom, 
David could not understand it, though in an elusive sort 
of way he felt it. He did not understand until Father 
Roland said, across the sledge, which he had begun to un¬ 
pack: 

“Seems good to be on the trail again, David.” 

That was it—the trail! This was the end of a day’a 
achievement. He looked at the cabin, dark and unlighted 
in the open, with its big white cap of snow. It looked 
friendly for all its darkness. He was filled with the desire 
to become a partner in the activities of Mukoki and the 
Missioner. He wanted to help, not because he placed any 
value on his assistance, but simply because his blood and 
his brain were imposing new desires upon him. He kicked 
off his snow shoes, and went with Mukoki to the door of 
the cabin, which was fastened with a wooden bolt. When 
they entered he could make out things indistinctly—a 
stove at first, a stool, a box, a small table, and a bunk 
against the wall. Mukoki was rattling the lids of the stove 
when Father Roland entered with his arms filled. He 
dropped his load on the floor, and David went back to the 
sledge with him. By the time they had brought its 
burden into the cabin a fire was roaring in the stove, and 
Mukoki had hung a lighted lantern over the table. Then 
Father Roland seized an axe, tested its keen edge with his 
thumb, and said to David: “Let’s go cut our beds before 
it’s too dark.” Cut their beds! But the Missioner’s 
broad back was disappearing through the door in a very 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 101 

purposeful way, and David caught up a second axe and 
followed. Young balsams twice as tall as a man were 
growing about the cabin, and from these Father Roland 
began stripping the branches. They carried armfuls into 
the cabin until the one bunk was heaped high, and mean¬ 
while Mukoki had half a dozen pots and kettles and pans 
on the glowing top of the sheet-iron stove, and thick cari¬ 
bou steaks were sizzling in a homelike and comforting way. 
A little later David ate as though he had gone hungry all 
day. Ordinarily he wanted his meat well done; to-night 
he devoured an inch-and-a quarter sirloin steak that floated 
in its own gravy, and was red to the heart of it. When they 
had finished they lighted their pipes and went out to feed 
the dogs a frozen fish apiece. 

An immense satisfaction possessed David. It was like 
something soft and purring inside of him. He made no 
effort to explain things. He was accepting facts, and 
changes. He felt bigger to-night, as though his lungs were 
stretching themselves, and his chest expanding. His 
fears were gone. He no longer saw anything to dread in 
the white wilderness. He was eager to go on, eager to 
reach Tavish’s. Ever since Father Roland had spoken of 
Tavish that desire had been growing within him. Tavish 
had not only come from the Stikine River; he had lived on 
Firepan Creek. It was incredible that he should not know 
of the Girl: who she was; just where she lived; why 
she was there. W 7 bite people were few in that far country. 
Tavish would surely know of her. He had made up his 
mind that he would show Tavish the picture, keeping to 
himself the manner in which he had come into possession 
of it. The daughter of a friend, he would tell them— 


102 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


both Father Roland and Tavish. Or of an acquaintance. 
That, at least, was half truth. 

A dozen things Father Roland spoke about that night 
before he alluded to Tavish. David waited. He did not 
want to appear too deeply interested. He desired to have 
the thing work itself out in a fortuitous sort of way, gov¬ 
erned, as he was, by a strong feeling that he could not 
explain his position, or his strange and growing interest in 
the Girb if the Missioner should by any chance discover 
the part he had played in the haunting though incidental 
encounter with the woman on the train. 

“Fear—a great fear—his life is haunted by it,” said 
Father Roland, when at last he began talking about 
Tavish. He was seated on a pile of balsams, his legs 
stretched out flat on the floor, his back to the wall, and he 
smoked thoughtfully as he looked at David. “A coward? 
I don’t know. I have seen him jump at the snap of a twig. 
I have seen him tremble at nothing at all. I have seen 
him shrink at darkness, and then, again, he came through 
a terrible darkness to reach my cabin that night. Mad? 
Perhaps. It is hard to believe he is a coward. Would a 
coward live alone, as he does? That seems impossible, 
too. And yet he is afraid. That fear is always close at 
his heels, especially at night. It follows him like a hungry 
dog. There are times when I would swear it is not fear of 
a living thing. That is what makes it—disturbing. It is 
weird—distressing. It makes one shiver.” 

The Missioner was silent for some moments, as if lost 
in a reverie. Then he said, reflectively: 

“I have seen strange things. I have had many peni¬ 
tents. My ears have heard much that you would not be- 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 103 


lieve. It has all come in my long day’s work in the wil¬ 
derness. But never, never have I seen a fight like this that 
is being made by Tavish—a fight against that mysterious 
rear, of which he will not speak. I would give a year of my 
life—yes, even more—to help him. There is something 
about him that is lovable, that makes you want to cling to 
him, be near him. But he will have none of that. He 
wants to be alone with his fear. Is it not strange? I have 
pieced little things together, and that night—when terror 
drove him to my cabin—he betrayed himself, and I learned 
one thing. He is afraid of a woman!” 

“A woman!” gasped David. 

“Yes, a woman—a woman who lives—or lived—up in 
the Stikine River country you mentioned to-day.” 

David’s heart stirred strangely. 

“The Stikine River, or—or—Firepan Creek?” he asked* 

It seemed a long time to him before Father Roland 
answered. He was thinking deeply, with his eyes half 
closed, as though striving to recall things that he had for¬ 
gotten. 

“Yes—it was on the Firepan. I am sure of it,” he said 
slowly. “He was sick—small-pox, as I told you—and it 
was on the Firepan. I remember that. And whoever the 
woman was, she was there. A woman! And he—afraid! 
Afraid, even now , with her a thousand miles away, if she 
lives. Can you account for it? I would give a great deal 
to know. But he will say nothing. And—it is not my 
business to intrude. Yet I have guessed. I have my own 
conviction. It is terrible.” 

He spoke in a low voice, looking straight at David. 

“ And that conviction, Father ? ” David barely whispered. 


104 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

“Tavish is afraid of some one who is dead.” 

“Dead!” 

“Yes, a woman—or a girl—who is dead; dead in the 
flesh, but living in the spirit to haunt him. It is that. I 
know it. And he will not bare his soul to me.” 

“A girl . . . who is dead ... on Firepan 

Creek. Her spirit . . . ” 

A cold, invisible hand was clutching at David’s throat. 
Shadows hid his face, or Father Roland would have seem 
His voice was strained. He forced it between his lips. 

“Yes, her spirit,” came the Missioner’s answer, and 
David heard the scrape of his knife as he cleaned out the 
bowl of his pipe. “It haunts Tavish. It is with him 
always. And he is afraid cf it I ” 

David rose slowly to his feet and went toward the door, 
slipping on his coat and cap. “I’m going to whistle for 
Baree,” he said, and went out. The white world was bril¬ 
liant under the glow of a full moon and a billion stars. 
It was the most wonderful night he had ever seen, and yet 
for a few moments he was as oblivious of its amazing 
beauty, its almost startling vividness, as though he had 
passed out into darkness. 

“A girl . . . Firepan . . . dead . . . 

haunting Tavish . . . ” 

He did not hear the whining of the dogs. He was again 
piecing together in his mind that picture—the barefooted 
girl standing on the rock, disturbed, startled, terrified, 
poised as if about to fly from a great danger. What had 
happened after the taking of that picture? Was it Tavish 
who had taken it? Was it Tavish who had surprised her 
there? Was it Tavish—Tavish—Tavish . . . ? 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 105 


His mind could not go on. He steadied himself, one 
hand clutching at the breast of his coat, where the picture 
lay. 

The cabin door opened behind him. The Missioner 
came out. He coughed, and looked up at the sky. 

“A splendid night, David,” he said softly. “A splen¬ 
did night!” 

He spoke in a strange, quiet voice that made David 
turn. The Little Missioner was facing the moon. He was 
gazing off into that wonder-world of forests and snow 
and stars and moonlight in a fixed and steady gaze, and it 
seemed to David that he aged, and shrank into smaller 
form, and that his shoulders drooped as if under a weight. 
And all at once David saw in his face what he had seen 
before when in the coach—a forgetfulness of all things but 
one, the lifting of a strange curtain, the baring of a soul; 
and for a few moments Father Roland stood with his face 
turned to the light of the skies, as if preoccupied by an 
all-pervading and hopeless grief. 


CHAPTER X 


I T WAS Baree who disturbed the silent tableau in the 
moonlight. David was staring at the Missioned 
held by the look of anguish that had settled so quickly 
and so strangely in his face, as if this bright night with its 
moon and stars had recalled to him a great sorrow, when 
they heard again the wolf-dog’s howl out in the forest. 
It was quite near. David, with his eyes still on the other, 
saw Father Roland start, as if for an instant he had forgot¬ 
ten where he was. The Missioner looked his way, and 
straightened his shoulders slowly, with a smile on his lips 
that was strained and wan as the smile of one worn out by 
an arduous toil. 

“A splendid night,” he repeated, and he raised a naked 
hand to his head, as if slowly brushing away something 
from before his eyes. “It was a night like this—this—- 
fifteen years ago . . . ” 

He stopped. In the moonlight he brought himself to¬ 
gether with a jerk. He came and laid a hand on David’s 
shoulder. 

“That was Baree,” he said. “The dog has followed 
us.” 

“He is not very far in the forest,” answered David. 

“No. He smells us. He is waiting out there for you.” 
There was a moment’s silence between them as they 
listened. 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 107 

“ I will take him a fish,’* said David, then. “ I am sure 
he will come to me.” 

Mukoki had hoisted the gunny sack full of fish well up 
against the roof of the cabin to keep it from chance ma¬ 
rauders of the night, and Father Roland stood by while 
David lowered it and made a choice for Baree’s supper. 
Then he reentered the cabin. 

It was not Baree who drew David slowly into the forest. 
He wanted to be alone, away from Father Roiand and the 
quiet, insistent scrutiny of the Cree. He wanted to think, 
ask himself questions, find answers for them if he could. 
His mind was just beginning to rouse itself to the signifi¬ 
cance of the events of the past day and night, and he was 
like one bewildered by a great mystery, and startled by 
visions of a possible tragedy. Fate had played with him 
strangely. It had linked him with happenings that were 
inexplicable and unusual, and he believed that they were 
not without their meaning for him. More or less of a 
fatalist, he was inspired by the sudden and disturbing 
thought that they had happened by inevitable necessity. 

Vividly he saw again the dark, haunting eyes of the 
woman in the coach, and heard again the few low, tense 
words with which she had revealed to him her quest of a 
man—a man by the name of Michael O’Doone. In her 
presence he had felt the nearness of tragedy. It had 
stirred him deeply, almost as deeply as the picture she had 
left in her seat—the picture hidden now against his breast 
— lik e a thing which must not be betrayed, and which a 
strange and compelling instinct had made him associate in 
such a startling way with Tavish. He could not get Tav¬ 
ish out of his mind; Tavish, the haunted man; Tavish the 


108 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


man who had fled from the Firepan Creek country at just 
about the time the girl in the picture had stood on the 
rock beside the pool; Tavish, terror-driven by a spirit of 
the dead! He did not attempt to reason the matter, or 
bare the folly of his alarm. He did not ask himself about 
the improbability of it all, but accepted without equivoca¬ 
tion that strong impression as it had come to him—the 
conviction that the girl on the rock and the woman in the 
coach were in some way identified with the flight of Tavish, 
the man he had never seen, from that far valley in the 
northwest mountains. 

The questions he asked himself now were not to establish 
in his own mind either the truth or the absurdity of this 
conviction. He was determining with himself whether 
or not to confide in Father Roland. It was more than 
delicacy that made him hesitate; it was almost a personal 
shame. For a long time he had kept within his breast the 
secret of his own tragedy and dishonour. That it was his 
dishonour, almost as much as the woman's, had been his 
own conviction; and how, at last, he had come to reveal 
that corroding sickness in his soul to a man who was 
almost a stranger was more than he could understand. 
But he had done just that. Father Roland had seen him 
stripped down to the naked truth in an hour of great need, 
and he had put out a hand in time to save him. He no 
longer doubted this last immeasurable fact. Twenty 
times since then, coldly and critically, he had thought of 
the woman who had been his wife, and slowly and terribly 
the enormity of her crime had swept further and further 
away from him the anguish of her loss. He was like a man 
risen from a sick bed, breathing freely again, tasting once 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 109 


more the flavour of the air that filled his lungs. All this 
he owed to Father Roland, and because of this—and his 
confession of only two nights ago—he felt a burning humili¬ 
ation at the thought of telling the Missioner that another 
face had come to fill his thoughts, and stir his anxieties. 
And wdiat less could he tell, if he confided in him at all? 

He had gone a hundred yards or more into the forest 
and in a little open space, lighted up like a tiny amphi- 
theatre in the glow of the moon, he stopped. Suddenly 
there came to him, thrilling in its promise, a key to the 
situation. He would wait until they reached Tavish’s. 
And then, in the presence of the Missioner, he would sud¬ 
denly show Tavish the picture. His heart throbbed un¬ 
easily as he anticipated the possible tragedy—the sudden 
betrayal—of that moment, for Father Roland had said, 
like one who had glimpsed beyond the ken of human eyes, 
that Tavish was haunted by a vision of the dead. The 
dead! Could it be that she, the girl in the picture . . .? 

He shook himself, set his lips tight to get the thought away 
from him. And the woman—the woman in the coach, 
the woman who had left in her seat this picture that was 
growing in his heart like a living thing—who was she? 
Was her quest one of vengeance—of retribution? Was 
Tavish the man she was seeking? Up in that mountain 
valley—where the girl had stood on that rock—had his 
name been Michael O’Doone? 

He was trembling when he went on, deeper into the 
forest. But of his determination there was no longer a 
doubt. He would say nothing to Father Roland until 
Tavish had seen the picture. 

Until now he had forgotten Baree. In the disquieting 


110 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


fear with which his thoughts were weighted he had lost 
hold of the fact that in his hand he still carried the slightly 
curved and solidly frozen substance of a fish. The move¬ 
ment of a body near him, so unexpected and alarmingly 
close that a cry broke from his lips as he leaped to one side, 
roused him with a sudden mental shock. The beast, 
whatever it was, had passed within six feet of him, and 
now, twice that distance away, stood like a statue hewn 
out of stone levelling at him the fiery gleam of a solitary 
eye. Until he saw that one eye, and not two, David did 
not breathe. Then he gasped. The fish had fallen from 
his fingers. He stooped, picked it up, and called softly: 

“Baree!” 

The dog was waiting for his voice. His one eye shifted, 
slanting like a searchlight in the direction of the cabin, 
and turned swiftly back to David. He whined, and David 
spoke to him again, calling his name, and holding out the 
fish. For several moments Baree did not move, but eyed 
him with the immobility of a half-blinded sphinx. Then, 
suddenly, he dropped on his belly and began crawling 
toward him. 

A spatter of moonlight fell upon them as David, crouch¬ 
ing on his heels, gave Baree the fish, holding for a moment 
to the tail of it while the hungry beast seized its head be¬ 
tween his powerful jaws with a grinding crunch. The 
power of those jaws sent a little shiver through the man so 
close to them. They were terrible—and splendid. A 
man’s leg-bone would have cracked between them like a 
pipe stem. And Baree, with that power of death in his 
jaws, had a second time crept to him on his belly—not 
fearingly, in the shadow of a club, but like a thin# tamed 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 111 


into slavery by a yearning adoration. It was a fact that 
seized upon David with a peculiar hold. It built up be¬ 
tween them—between this down-and-out beast and a man 
fighting to find himself—a comradeship which perhaps 
only the man and the beast could understand. Even 
as he devoured the fish Baree kept his one eye on David, 
as though fearing he might lose him again if he allowed his 
gaze to falter for an instant. The truculency and the 
menace of that eye were gone. It was still bloodshot, still 
burned with a reddish fire, and a great pity swept through 
David, as he thought of the blows the club must have 
given. He noticed, then, that Baree was making efforts 
to open the other eye; he saw the swollen lid flutter, the 
muscle twitch. Impulsively he put out a hand. It fell 
unflinchingly on Baree’s head, and in an instant the 
crunching of the dog’s jaw had ceased, and he lay as if 
dead. David bent nearer. With the thumb and fore¬ 
finger of his other hand he gently lifted the swollen lid. 
It caused a hurt. Baree whined softly. His great body 
trembled. His ivory fangs clicked like the teeth of a man 
with ague. To his wolfish soul, trembling in a body that 
had been condemned, beaten, clubbed almost to the door 
of death, that hurt caused by David’s fingers was a caress. 
He understood. He saw with a vision that was keener than 
sight. Faith was born in him, and burned like a conflagra¬ 
tion. His head dropped to the snow; a great, gasping sigh 
ran through him, and his trembling ceased. His good eye 
closed slowly as David gently and persistently massaged 
the muscles of the other with his thumb and forefinger. 
When at last he rose to his feet and returned to the cabin, 
Baree followed him to the edge of the clearing. 


112 THE COURAGE OF MAitGE O’DOONE 


Mukoki and the Missioner had made their beds of bal¬ 
sam boughs, two on the floor and one in the bunk, and the 
Cree had already rolled himself in his blanket when David 
entered the shack. Father Roland was wiping David’s gun. 

“We’ll give you a little practice with this to-morrow/* 
he promised. “Do you suppose you can hit a moose? ** 

“I have my doubts, mon Pere.” 

Father Roland gave vent to his curious chuckle. 

“I have promised to make a marksman of you in ex¬ 
change for your—your trouble in teaching me how to use 
the gloves/’ he said, polishing furiously. There was a 
twinkle in his eyes, as if a moment before he had been 
laughing to himself. The gloves were on the table. 
He had been examining them again, and David found 
himself smiling at the childlike and eager interest he had 
taken in them. Suddenly Father Roland rubbed still a 
little faster, and said: 

“If you can’t hit a moose with a bullet you surely can 
hit me with these gloves—eh?” 

“Yes, quite positively. But I shall be merciful if you, 
in turn, show some charity in teaching me how to shoot.” 

The Little Missioner finished his polishing, set the rifle 
against the wall, and took the gloves in his hands. 

“It is bright—almost like day—outside,” he said a little 
yearningly. “ Are you—tired? ” 

His hint was obvious, even to Mukoki, who stared at 
him from under his blanket. And David was not tired. 
If his afternoon’s work had fatigued him his exhaustion 
was forgotten in the mental excitement that had fol¬ 
lowed the Missioner’s story of Tavish. He took a pair 
of the gloves in his hands, and nodded toward the door. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 113 


“You mean . . ” 

Father Roland was on his feet. 

“ If you are not tired. It would give us a better stomach 
for sleep.” 

Mukoki rolled from his blanket, a grin on his leathery 
face. He tied the wrist laces for them, and followed them 
out into the moonlit night, his face a copper-coloured 
gargoyle illuminated by that fixed and joyous grin. 
David saw the look and wondered if it would change when 
he sent the Little Missioner bowling over in the snow, 
which he was quite sure to do, even if he was careful. 
He was a splendid boxer. In the days of his practice he 
had struck a terrific blow for his weight. At the Athletic 
Club he had been noted for a subtle strategy and a clever¬ 
ness of defence that were his own. But he felt that he had 
grown rusty during the past year and a half. This 
thought was in his mind when he tapped the Missioner on 
the end of his ruddy nose. They squared away in the 
moonlight, eight inches deep in the snow, and there was a 
joyous and eager fight in Father Roland’s eyes. The tap 
on his nose did not dim it. His teeth gleamed, even as 
David’s gloves went plunk, plunk , against his nose again. 
Mukoki, still grinning like a carven thing, chuckled audi¬ 
bly. David pranced carelessly about the Little Missioner, 
poking him beautifully as he offered suggestions and 
criticism. 

“You should protect your nose, mon Pere”—plunk l 
“And the pit of your stomach ”—plunk l “And also your 
ears”— plunk, plunk! “But especially your nose, mon 
Pere ”— plunk, plunk ! 

“And sometimes the tip of your jaw, David,” gurgled 


114 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

Father Roland, and for a few moments night closed In 
darkly about David. 

When he came fully into his senses again he was sitting 
in the snow, with the Little Missioner bending over him 
anxiously, and Mukoki grinning down at him like a 
fiend. 

“Dear Heaven, forgive me!” he heard Father Roland 
saying. “I didn’t mean it so hard, David—I didn’t! 
But oh, man, it was such a chance—such a beautiful 
chance! And now I’ve spoiled it. I’ve spoiled our fun.” 

“Not unless you’re—tired,” said David, getting up 
on his feet. “You took me at a disadvantage, mon PZre. 
I thought you were green.” 

“And you were pulverizing my nose,” apologized Father 
Roland. 

They went at it again, and this time David spared none 
of his caution, and offered no advice, and the Missioner 
no longer posed, but became suddenly as elusive and as 
agile as a cat. David was amazed, but he wasted no 
breath to demand an explanation. Father Roland was 
parrying his straight blows like an adept. Three times 
in as many minutes he felt the sting of the Missioner’s 
glove in his face. In straight-away boxing, without the 
finer tricks and artifice of the game, he was soon convinced 
that the forest man was almost his match. Little by 
little he began to exert the cleverness of his training. At 
the end of ten minutes Father Roland was sitting dazedly 
in the snow, and the grin had gone from Mukoki’s face. 
He had succumbed to a trick—a swift side step, a feint 
that had held in it an ambush, and the seat of the Little 
Missioner’s faculties had rocked. But he was gurgling 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 115 

joyously when he rose to his feet, and with one arm he 
hugged David as they returned to the cabin. 

“Only one other man has given me a jolt like that in 
many a year,” he boasted, a bit proudly. “And that was 
Tavish. Tavish is good. He must have lived long among 
fighting men. Perhaps that is why I think so kindly of 
him. I love a fighting man if he fights honourably with 
either brain or brawn, even more than I despise a coward.” 

“And yet this Tavish, you say, is pursued by a great 
fear. Can he be so much of a fighting man, in the way 
you mean, and still live in terror of . . .” 

“What?” 

That single word broke from the Missioner like the 
sharp crack of a whip. 

“Of what is he afraid?” he repeated. “Can you tell 
me? Can you guess more than I have guessed? Is one a 
coward because he fears whispers that tremble in the air 
and sees a face in the darkness of night that is neither living 
nor dead? Is he?” 

For a long time after he had gone to bed David lay wide 
awake in the darkness, his mind working until it seemed to 
him that it was prisoned in an iron chamber from which 
it was making futile efforts to escape. He could hear the 
steady breathing of Father Roland and Mukoki, who were 
asleep. His own eyes he could close only by forced efforts 
to bring upon himself the unconsciousness of rest. Tavish 
filled his mind—Tavish and the girl—and along with them 
the mysterious woman in the coach. He struggled with 
himself. He told himself how absurd it all was, how 
grotesquely his imagination was employing itself with 
him—how incredible it was that Tavish and the girl in the 


116 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


picture should be associated in that terrible way that had 
occurred to him. But he failed to convince himself. He 
fell asleep at last, and his slumber was filled with fleeting 
visions. When he awoke the cabin was filled with the glow 
of the lantern. Father Roland and Mukoki were up, and 
a fire was crackling in the stove. 

The four days that followed broke the last link in the 
chain that held David Raine to the fife from which he was 
fleeing when the forest Missioner met him in the Trans¬ 
continental. They were four wonderful days, in which 
they travelled steadily northward; days of splendid sun¬ 
shine, of intense cold, of brilliant stars and a full moon at 
night. The first of these four days David travelled fifteen 
miles on his snow shoes, and that night he slept in a balsam 
shelter close to the face of a great rock which they heated 
with a fire of logs, so that all through the cold hours be¬ 
tween darkness and gray dawn the boulder was like a huge 
warming-stone. The second day marked also the second 
great stride in his education in the life of the wild. Fang 
and hoof and padded claw were at large again in the 
forests after the blizzard, and Father Roland stopped at 
each broken path that crossed the trail, pointing out to him 
the stories that were written in the snow. He showed him 
where a fox had followed silently after a snow-shoe rabbit; 
where a band of wolves had ploughed through the snow 
in the trail of a deer that was doomed, and in a dense run 
of timber where both moose and caribou had sought refuge 
from the storm he explained carefully the slight difference 
between the hoof prints of the two. That night Baree 
came into camp while they were sleeping, and in the morn¬ 
ing they found where he had burrowed his round bed in 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 117 


the snow not a dozen yards from their shelter. The third 
norning David shot his moose. And that night he lured 
Baree almost to the side of their campfire, and tossed him 
chunks of raw flesh from where he sat smo kin g his pipe. 

He was changed. Three days on the trail and three 
nights in camp under the stars had begun their promised 
miracle-working. His face was darkened by a stubble of 
beard, his ears and cheek bones were reddened by exposure 
to cold and wind; he felt that in those three days and nights 
his muscles had hardened, and his weakness had left him. 
“It was in your mind—your sickness,” Father Roland 
had told him, and he believed it now. He began to find 
a pleasure in that physical achievement which he had 
wondered at in Mukoki and the Missioner. Each noon 
when they stopped to boil their tea and cook their dinner, 
and each night when they made camp, he had chopped 
down a tree. To-night it had been an 8-inch jack pine, 
tough with pitch. The exertion had sent his blood pound¬ 
ing through him furiously. He was still breathing deeply 
as he sat near the fire, tossing bits of meat out to Baree. 
They were sixty miles from Thoreau’s cabin, straight north, 
and for the twentieth time Father Roland was telling him 
how well he had done. 

“And to-morrow,” he added, “we’ll reach Tavish’s.” 

It had grown upon David that to see Tavish had be¬ 
come his one great mission in the North. What adventure 
lay beyond that meeting he did not surmise. All his 
thoughts had centred in the single desire to let Tavish 
look upon the picture. To-night, after the Missioner 
had joined Mukoki in the silk tent buried warmly under 
the mass of cut balsam, he sat a little longer beside the 


118 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


fire, and asked himself questions which he had not thought 
of before. He would see Tavish. He would show him 
the picture. And—what then? Would that be the end 
of it? He felt, for a moment, uncomfortable. Beyond 
Tavish there was a disturbing and unanswerable problem. 
The Girl, if she still lived, was a thousand miles from where 
he was sitting at this moment; to reach her, with that 
distance of mountain and forest between them, would be 
like travelling to the end of the world. It was the first 
time there had risen in his mind a definite thought of 
going to her—if she were alive. It startled him. It 
was like a shock. Go to her? Why? He drew forth the 
picture from his coat pocket and stared at the wonder-face 
of the Girl in the light of the blazing logs. Why ? His 
heart trembled. He lifted his eyes to the grayish film 
of smoke rising between him and the balsam-covered tent, 
and slowly he saw another face take form, framed in that 
wraith-like mist of smoke—the face of a golden goddess, 
laughing at him, taunting him. Laughing — laughing! 
. . . He forced his gaze from it with a shudder. Again 

he looked at the picture of the Girl in his hand. “She 
knows. She understands. She comforts me.” He whis¬ 
pered the words. They were like a breath rising out of his 
soul. He replaced the picture in his pocket, and for a 
moment held it close against his breast. 

The next day, as the swift-thickening gloom of northern 
night was descending about them again, the Missioner 
halted his team on the crest of a boulder-strewn ridge, and 
pointing down into the murky plain at their feet he said, 
with the satisfaction of one who has come to a journey's ends 

“There is Tavish’s.” 


CHAPTER XI 


T HEY went down into the plain. David strained 
his eyes, but he could see nothing where Father 
Roland had pointed except the purplish sea of for¬ 
est growing black in the fading twilight. Ahead of the team 
Mukoki picked his way slowly and cautiously among the 
snow-hidden rocks, and with the Missioner David flung 
his weight backward on the sledge to keep it from running 
upon the dogs. It was a thick, wild place and it struck 
him that Tavish could not have chosen a spot of more 
sinister aspect in which to hide himself and his secret. 
A terribly lonely place it was, and still as death as they 
went down into it. They heard not even the howl of a 
dog, and surely Tavish had dogs. He was on the point 
of speaking, of asking the Missioner why Tavish, haunted 
by fear, should bury himself in a place like this, when the 
lead-dog suddenly stopped and a low, lingering whine 
drifted back to them. David had never heard anything 
like that whine. It swept through the line of dogs, from 
throat to throat, and the beasts stood stiff-legged and 
stark in their traces, staring with eight pairs of restlessly 
blazing eyes into the wall of darkness ahead. The Cree 
had turned, but the sharp command on his lips had frozen 
there. David saw him standing ahead of the team as 
silent and as motionless as rock. From him he looked into 
tFt Missioner’s face. Father Roland was staring. There 


m THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

was a strange suspense in his breathing. And then, sud¬ 
denly, the lead-dog sat back on his haunches and turning 
his gray muzzle up to the sky emitted a long and mournful 
howl. There was something about it that made David 
shiver. Mukoki came staggering back through the snow 
like a sick man 

“ Nipoo-win Ooyoo he said, his eyes shining like points 
of flame. A shiver see* ed to be running through him. 

For a moment the Missioner did not seem to hear him. 
Then he cried: 

“ Give them the whip! Drive them on! ” 

The Cree turned, unwinding his long lash. 

“ Nipoo-vrin Ooyoo /” he muttered again. 

The whip cracked over the backs of the huskies, the 
end of it stinging the rump of the lead-dog, who was 
master of them all. A snarl rose for an instant in his 
throat, then he straightened out, and the dogs lurched 
forward. Mukoki ran ahead, so that the lead-dog was 
close at his heels. 

“What did he say?” asked David. 

In the gloom the Missioner made a gesture of protest 
with his two hands. David could no longer see his 
face. 

“He is superstitious,” he growled. “He is absurd- 
He would make the very devil’s flesh creep. He says that 
old Beaver has given the death howl. Bah! ” 

David could feel the other’s shudder in the darkness. 
They went on for another hundred yards. With a low 
word Mukoki stopped the team. The dogs were whining 
softly, staring straight ahead, when David and the Mis¬ 
sioner joined the Cree. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 121 


Father Roland pointed to a dark blot in the night, fifty 
paces beyond them. He spoke to David. 

“ There is Tavish’s cabin. Come. We will see.” 

Mukoki remained with the team. They could hear the 
dogs whining as they advanced. The cabin took shape in 
their faces—grotesque, dark, lifeless. It was a foreboding 
thing, that cabin. He remembered in a flash all that the 
Missioner had told him about Tavish. His pulse was 
beating swiftly. A shiver ran up his back, and he was 
filled with a strange dread. Father Roland’s voice startled 
him. 

“Tavish! Tavish!” it called. 

They stood close to the door, but heard no answer. 
Father Roland stamped with his foot, and scraped with 
his toe on the ground. 

“See, the snow has been cleaned away recently,” he 
said. “ Mukoki is a fool. He is superstitious. He made 
me, for an instant—afraid.” 

There was a vast relief in his voice. The cabin door 
was unbolted and he flung it open confidently. It was 
pitch dark inside, but a flood of warm air struck their 
faces. The Missioner laughed. 

“Tavish, are you asleep?” he called. 

There was no answer. Father Roland entered. 

“He has been here recently. There is a fire in the 
stove. We will make ourselves at home.” He fumbled 
in his clothes and found a match. A moment later he 
struck it, and lighted a tin lamp that hung from the 
ceiling. In its glow his face was of a strange colour. He 
had been under strain. The hand that held the burning 
match was unsteady. “Strange, very strange,” he was 


m THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


saying, as if to himself. And then: “Preposterous! I 
will go back and tell Mukoki. He is shivering. He is 
afraid. He believes that Tavish is in league with the devil. 
He says that the dogs know, and that they have warned 
him. Queer. Monstrously queer. And interesting. Eh?” 

He went out. David stood where he was, looking about 
him in the blurred light of the lamp over his head. He 
almost expected Tavish to creep out from some dark cor¬ 
ner; he hah expected to see him move from under the 
dishevelled blankets in the bunk at the far end of the 
room. It was a big room, twenty feet from end to end, 
and almost as wide, and after a moment or two he knew 
that he was the only living thing in it, except a small f 
gray mouse that came fearlessly quite close to his feet# 
And then he saw a second mouse, and a third, and about 
him, and over him, he heard a creeping, scurrying noise, as 
of many tiny feet pattering. A paper on the table rustled, 
a series of squeaks came from the bunk, he felt something 
that was like a gentle touch on the toe of his moccasin, 
and looked down. The cabin was alive with mice! It 
was filled with the restless movement of them—little 
bright-eyed creatures who moved about him without fear, 
and, he thought, expectantly. He had not moved an inch 
when Father Roland came again into the cabin. He 
pointed to the floor. 

“The place is alive with them!” he protested. 

Father Roland appeared in great good humour as he 
slipped off his mittens and rubbed his hands over the stove. 

“Tavish’s pets,” he chuckled. “He says they’re com. 
pany. I’ve seen a dozen of them on his shoulders at one 
time. Queer. Queer.” 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 123 

His hands made the rasping sound as he rubbed them. 
Suddenly he lifted a lid from the stove and peered into 
the fire-box. 

“He put fuel in here less than an hour ago,” he said. 
“Wonder where he can be mouching at this hour. The 
dogs are gone.” He scanned the table. “No supper. 
Pans clean. Mice hungry. He’ll be back soon. But we 
won’t wait. I’m famished.” 

He spoke swiftly, and filled the stove with wood. 
Mukoki began bringing in the dunnage. The uneasy 
gleam was still in his eyes. His gaze was shifting and 
restless with expectation. He came and went noiselessly, 
treading as though he feared his footsteps would awaken 
some one, and David saw that he was afraid of the mice. 
One of them ran up his sleeve as they were eating supper, 
and he flung it from him with a strange, quick breath, his 
eyes blazing. 

“ Muche Munito /” he shuddered. 

He swallowed the rest of his meat hurriedly, and after 
that took his blankets, and with a few words in Cree to 
the Missioner left the cabin. 

“He says they are little devils—the mice,” said Father 
Roland, looking after him reflectively. “He will sleep 
near the dogs. I wonder how far his intuition goes? He 
believes that Tavish harbours bad spirits in this cabin, 
and that they have taken the form of mice. Pooh! 
They’re cunning little vermin. Tavish has taught them 
tricks. Watch this one feed out of my hand!” 

Half a dozen times they had climbed to David’s shoulders. 
One of them had nestled in a warm furry ball against his 
neck, as if waiting. They were certain lv companionable— 


124 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


quite chummy, as the Missioner said. No wonder Tavish 
harboured them in his loneliness. David fed them and 
let them nibble from his fingers, and yet they gave him a 
distinctly unpleasant sensation. When the Missioner had 
finished his last cup of coffee he crumbled a thick chunk 
of bannock and placed it on the floor back of the stove. 
The mice gathered round it in a silent, hungry, nibbling 
horde. David tried to count them. There must have 
been twenty. He felt an impulse to scoop them up in 
something, Tavish’s water pail for instance, and pitch them 
out into the night. The creatures became quieter after 
their gorge on bannock crumbs. Most of them dis¬ 
appeared. 

For a long time David and the Missioner sat smoking 
their pipes, waiting for Tavish. Father Roland was 
puzzled and yet he was assured. He was puzzled because 
Tavish’s snow shoes hung on their wooden peg in one of 
the cross logs and his rifle was in its rack over the bunk. 

“I didn’t know he had another pair of snow shoes,” he 
said. “Still, it is quite a time since I have seen him—a 
number of weeks. I came down in the early November 
snow. lie is not far away or he would have taken hie 
rifle. Probably setting a few fresh poison-baits after the 
storm.” 

They heard the sweep of a low wind. It often came at 
night after a storm, usually from off the Barrens to the 
northwest. Something thumped gently against the out¬ 
side of the cabin, a low, peculiarly heavy and soft sort of 
sound, like a padded object, with only the log wall sepa¬ 
rating it from the bunk. Their ears caught it quite dis¬ 
tinctly. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O DOONE lt5 

“Tavish hangs his meat out there,’’ the Missioner ex¬ 
plained, observing the sudden direction of David’s eyes. 
“A haunch of moose, or, if he has been lucky, of caribou. 
1 had forgotten Tavish’s cache or we might have saved our 
meat.” 

He ran a hand through his thick, grayish hair until it 
stood up about his head like a brush. 

David tried not to reveal his restlessness as they waited. 
At each new sound he hoped that what he heard was 
Tavish’s footsteps. He had quite decidedly planned his 
action. Tavish would enter, and of course there would be 
greetings, and possibly half an hour or more of smoking and 
talk before he brought up the Firepan Creek country, 
unless, as might fortuitously happen, Father Roland spoke 
of it ahead of him. After that he would show Tavish the 
picture, and he would stand well in the light so that it 
would be impressed upon Tavish ail at once. He noticed 
that the chimney of the lamp was sooty and discoloured, 
and somewhat to the Missioner’s amusement he took it oft 
and cleaned it. The light was much more satisfactory 
then. He wandered about the cabin, scrutinizing, as if 
out of curiosity, Tavish’s belongings. There was not 
much to discover. Close to the bunk there was a small 
battered chest with riveted steel ribs. He wondered 
whether it was unlocked, and what it contained. As he 
stood over it he could hear plainly the thud , thud , thud, of the 
thing outside—the haunch of meat—as though some one 
were tapping fragments of the Morse code in a careless and 
broken sort of way. Then, without any particular motive, 
he stepped into the dark corner at the end of the bunk. 
An agonized squeak came from under his foot, and he felt 


126 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


something small and soft flatten out, like a wad of dough. 
He jumped back. An exclamation broke from his lips. 
It was unpleasant, though the soft thing was nothing more 
than a mouse. 

“Confound it!” he said. 

Father Roland was listening to the slow, pendulum-like 
thud , thud , thud , against the logs of the cabin. It seemed to 
come more distinctly as David crushed out the life of the 
mouse, as if pounding a protest upon the wall. 

“Tavish has hung his meat low,” he said concernedly. 
“Quite careless of him, unless it is a very large quarter.” 

He began slowly to undress. 

“We might as well turn in,” he suggested. “When 
Tavish shows up the dogs will raise bedlam and wake us. 
Throw out Tavish’s blankets and put your own in his bunk. 
I prefer the floor. Always did. Nothing like a good, 
smooth floor . . .” 

He was interrupted by the opening of the cabin door. 
The Cree thrust in his head and shoulders. He came no 
farther. His eyes were afire with the smouldering gleam of 
garnets. He spoke rapidly in his native tongue to the 
Missioner, gesturing with one lean, brown hand as he 
talked. Father Roland’s face became heavy, furrowed, 
perplexed. He broke in suddenly, in Cree, and when he 
ceased speaking Mukoki withdrew slowly. The last 
David saw of the Indian was his shifting, garnet-like eyes, 
disappearing like beads of blackish flame. 

“Pest!” cried the Little Missioner, slirugging his 
shoulders in disgust. “The dogs are uneasy. Mukoki 
says they smell death. They sit on their haunches, he 
says, staring—staring at nothing, and whining like puppies. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 127 

fire is going back with them to the other side of the ridge. 
If it will ease his soul, let him go. ” 

“I have heard of dogs doing that,” said David. 

“Of course they will do it,” shot back Father Roland 
unhesitatingly. “Northern dogs always do it, and es¬ 
pecially mine. They are accustomed to death. Twenty 
times in a winter, and sometimes more, I care for the dead. 
They always go with me, and they can smell death in the 
wind. But here—why, it is absurd! There is nothing 
dead here—unless it is that mouse, and Tavish’s meat!” 
He shook himself, grumbling under his breath at Mukoki’a 
folly. And then: “The dogs have always acted queerly 
when Tavish was near,” he added in a lower voice. “J 
can’t explain why; they simply do. Instinct, possibly. 
His presence makes them uneasy. An unusual man, this 
Tavish. I wish he would come. I am anxious for you to 
meet him.” 

That his mind was quite easy on the score of Tavish’s 
physical well-being he emphasized by falling asleep very 
shortly after rolling himself up in his blankets on the floor. 
During their three nights in camp David had marvelled 
at and envied the ease with which Father Roland could 
drop off into profound and satisfactory slumber, this 
being, as his new friend had explained to him, the great 
and underlying virtue of a good stomach. To-night, 
however, the Missioner’s deep and regular breathing as 
he lay on the floor was a matter of vexation to him. He 
wanted him awake. He wanted him up and alive, 
thoroughly alive, when Tavish came. “Pounding his 
ear like a tenderfoot,” he thought, “while I, a puppy in 
harness, couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. ” He was nervously 


i28 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


alert. He filled his pipe for the third or fourth time and 
sat down on the edge of the bunk, listening for Tavish. 
He was certain, from all that had been said, that Tavish 
would come. All he had to do was wait. There had been 
growing in him, a bit unconsciously at first, a feeling of 
animosity toward Tavish, an emotion that burned in him 
with a gathering fierceness as he sat alone in the dim 
light of the cabin, grinding out in his mental restlessness 
visions of what Tavish might have done. Conviction 
had never been stronger in him. Tavish, if he had guessed 
correctly, was a fiend. He would soon know. And if 
he was right, if Tavish had done that, if up in those 
mountains . . . 

His eyes blazed and his hands were clenched as he 
looked down at Father Roland. After a moment, without 
taking his eyes from the Missioner’s recumbent form, he 
reached to the pocket of his coat which he had flung on 
the bunk and drew out the picture of the Girl. He looked 
at it a long time, his heart growing warm, and the tense 
lines softening in his face. 

“It can’t be,” he whispered. “She is alive!” 

As if the wind had heard him, and was answering, there 
came more distinctly the sound close behind him. 

Thud! Thud! Thud! 

There was a silence, in which David closed his fingers 
tightly about the picture. And then, more insistently: 

Thud! Thud! Thud! 

He put the picture back into his pocket, and rose to his 
feet. Mechanically he slipped on his coat. lie went to 
the door, opened it softly, and passed out into the night. 
The moon was above him, like a great, white disc. The 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 129 


sky burned with stars. He could see now to the foot of 
the ridge over which Mukoki had gone, and the clearing 
about the cabin lay in a cold and luminous glory. Tavish, 
if he had been caught in the twilight darkness and had 
waited for the moon to rise, would be showing up soon. 

He w T alked to the side of the cabin and looked back. 
Quite distinctly he could see Tavish’s meat, suspended 
from a stout sapling that projected straight out from under 
the edge of the roof. It hung there darkly, a little in 
shadow, swinging gently in the wind that had risen, and 
tap-tap-tapping against the logs. David moved toward 
it, gazing at the edge of the forest in which he thought 
he had heard a sound that was like the creak of a sledge 
runner. He hoped it was Tavish returning. For several 
moments he listened with his back to the cabin. Then he 
turned. He was very close to the thing hanging from the 
sapling. It was swinging slightly. The moon shone on 
it. and then— Great God! A face—a human face! 
A face, bearded, with bulging, staring eyes, gaping mouth 
—a grin of agony frozen in it! And it was tapping, tap¬ 
ping, tapping! 

He staggered back with a dreadful cry. He swayed to 
the door, groped blindly for the latch, stumbled in clumsily, 
like a drunken man. The horror of that lifeless, grinning 
face was in his voice. He had awakened the Missioner, 
who was sitting up, staring at him. 

“Tavish . . cried David chokingly; “Tavish— 

is dead!” and he pointed to the end of the cabin where 
they could hear again that tap-tap-tapping against the log 
wall. 


CHAPTER XII 


N OT until afterward did David realize how terribly 
his announcement of Tavish’s death must have 
struck into the soul of Father Roland. For a few 
seconds the Missioner did not move. He was wide awake, 
he had heard, and yet he looked at David dumbly, his 
two hands gripping his blanket. When he did move, it 
was to turn his face slowly toward the end of the cabin 
where the thing was hanging, with only the wall between, 
Then, still slowly, he rose to his feet. 

David thought he had only half understood. 

“Tavish—is dead!” he repeated huskily, straining to 
swallow the thickening in his throat. “He is out there-c¬ 
hanging by his neck—dead! ” 

Dead ! He emphasized that word—spoke it twice. 
Father Roland still did not answer. He was getting 
into his clothes mechanically, his face curiously ashen, his 
eyes neither horrified nor startled, but with a stunned look 
in them. He did not speak when he went to the door and 
out into the night. David followed, and in a moment 
they stood close to the thing that was hanging where 
Tavish’s meat should have been. The moon threw a vivid 
sort of spotlight on it. It was grotesque and horrible— 
very bad to look at, and unforgettable. Tavish had not 
died easily. He seemed to shriek that fact at them as he 
swung there dead; even now he seemed more terrified than 
130 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 131 


cold. His teeth gleamed a little. That, perhaps, was 
the worst of it all. And his hands were clenched tight. 
David noticed that. Nothing seemed relaxed about 
him. 

Not until he had looked at Tavish for perhaps sixty 
full seconds did Father Roland speak. He had recovered 
himself, judging from his voice. It was quiet and un¬ 
excited. But in his first words, unemotional as they 
were, there was a significance that was almost frighten- 
in g. 

“At last! She made him do that!” 

He was speaking to himself, looking straight inte 
Tavish’s agonized face. A great shudder swept through 
David. She / He wanted to cry out. He wanted to 
know. But the Missioner now had his hands on 
the gruesome thing in the moonlight, and he was say¬ 
ing: 

“There is still warmth in his body. He has not been 
long dead. He hanged himself, I should say, not more 
than half an hour before we reached the cabin. Give me 
a hand, David!” 

With a mighty effort David pulled himself together. 
After all, it was nothing more than a dead man hanging 
there. But his hands were like ice as he seized hold of it. 
A knife gleamed in the moonlight over Tavish’s head as 
the Missioner cut the rope. They lowered Tavish to the 
snow, and David went into the cabin for a blanket. 
Father Roland wrapped the blanket carefully about the 
body so that it would not freeze to the ground. Then 
they entered the cabin. The Missioner threw off his coat 
and built up the fire. When he turned he seemed to 


132 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


notice for the first time the deathly pallor in David : 
face. 

“It shocked you—when you found it there,” he said. 
“Ugh l I don’t wonder. But I . . . David, I didn’t 

tell you I was expecting something like this. I have 
feared for Tavish. And to-night when the dogs and 
Mukoki signalled death I was alarmed—until we found the 
fire in the stove. It didn’t seem reasonable then. I 
thought Tavish would return. The dogs were gone, too 
He must have freed them just before he went out there. 
Terrible! But justice—justice, I suppose. God some¬ 
times works His ends in queer ways, doesn’t He?” 

“What do you mean?” cried David, again fighting that 
thickening in his throat. “Tell me. Father! I must 
know. Why did he kill himself?” 

His hand was clutching at his breast, where the picture 
lay. He wanted to tear it out, in this moment, and 
demand of Father Roland whether this was the face— 
the girl’s face—that had haunted Tavish. 

“I mean that his fear drove him at last to kill himself,” 
said Father Roland in a slow, sure voice, as if carefully 
weighing his words before speaking them. “I believe, 
now, that he terribly wronged some one, that his con¬ 
science was his fear, and that it haunted him by bringing 
up visions and voices until it drove him finally to pay his 
debt. And up here conscience is mitoo aye chikoon —the 
Little Brother of God. That is all I know. I wish 
Tavish had confided in me. I might have saved 
him.” 

“Or—punished,” breathed David. 

“‘My business is not to punish. If he had come to 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 133 

toe, asking help for himself and mercy from his God, I 
could not have betrayed him.” 

He was putting on his coat again. 

“I am going after Mukoki,” he said. “There is work 
to be done, and we may as well get through with it by 
moonlight. I don’t suppose you feel like sleep?” 

David shook his head. He was calmer now, quite 
recovered from the first horror of his shock, when the door 
closed behind Father Roland. In the thoughts that were 
swiftly readjusting themselves in his mind there was no 
very great sympathy for the man who had hanged himself. 
In place of that sympathy the oppression of a thing that 
was greater than disappointment settled upon him heavily, 
driving from him his own personal dread of this night’s 
ghastly adventure, and adding to his suspense of the last 
forty-eight hours a hopelessness the poignancy of which 
was almost like that of a physical pain. Tavish was dead, 
and in dying he had taken with him the secret for which 
David would have paid with all he was worth in this hour. 
In his despair, as he stood there alone in the cabin, he 
muttered something to himself. The desire possessed 
him to cry out aloud that Tavish had cheated him. A 
strange kind of rage burned within him and he turned 
toward the door, with clenched hands, as if about to rush 
out and choke from the dead man’s throat what he wanted 
to know, and force his glazed and staring eyes to look for 
just one instant on the face of the girl in the picture. 
In another moment his brain had cleared itself of that 
insane fire. After all, would Tavish kill himself without 
leaving something behind? Would there not be some 
kind of an explanation, written by Tavish before he took 




134 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


the final step? A confession? A letter to Father Roland? 
Tavish knew that the Missioner would stop at his cabin 
on his return into the North. Surely he would not kill 
himself without leaving some work for him—at least a 
brief accounting for his act! 

He began looking about the cabin again, swiftly and 
eagerly at first, for if Tavish had written anything he 
would beyond all doubt have placed the paper in some 
conspicuous place: pinned it at the end of his bunk, or on 
the wall, or against the door. They might have over¬ 
looked it, or possibly it had fallen to the floor. To make 
his search surer David lowered the lamp from its bracket 
in the ceiling and carried it in his hand. He went into dark 
corners, scrutinized the floor as well as the walls, and moved 
garments from their wooden pegs. There was nothing 
Tavish had cheated him again! His eyes rested finally 
on the chest. He placed the lamp on a stool, and tried 
the lid. It was unlocked. As he lifted it he heard voices 
indistinctly outside. Father Roland had returned with 
Mukoki. He could hear them as they went to where 
Tavish was lying with his face turned up to the moon. 

On his knees he began pawing over the stuff in the 
chest. It was a third filled with odds and ends—little 
else but trash; tangled ends of babiche , a few rusted tools, 
nails and bolts, a pair of half-worn shoe packs—a mere 
litter of disappointing rubbish. The door opened behind 
him as he was rising to his feet. He turned to face 
Mukoki and the Missioner. 

“There is nothing,” he said, with a gesture that took 
in the room. “He hasn’t left any word that I can find.” 

Father Roland had not closed the door. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 135 

“Mukoki will help you search. Look in his cloth¬ 
ing on the wall. Tavish must surely have left—some¬ 
thing.” 

He went out, shutting the door behind him. For a 
moment he listened to make sure that David was not going 
to follow him. He hurried then to the body of Tavish, 
and stripped off the blanket. The dead man was terrible 
to look at, with his open glassy eyes and his distorted face, 
and the moonlight gleaming on his grinning teeth. The 
Missioner shuddered. 

“I can’t guess,” he whispered, as if speaking to Tavish. 
“I can’t guess—quite—what made you do it, Tavish. 
But you haven’t died without telling me. I know it It’s 
there—in your pocket.” 

He listened again, and his lips moved. He bent over 
him, on one knee, and averted his eyes as he searched the 
pockets of Tavish’s heavy coat. Against the dead man’s 
breast he found it, neatly folded, about the size of foolscap 
paper—several pages of it, he judged, by the thickness of 
the packet. It was tied with fine threads of babiche, and 
in the moonlight he could make out quite distinctly the 
words, “For Father Roland, God’s Lake—Personal.” 
Tavish, after all, had not made himself the victim of sudden 
fright, of a momentary madness. He had planned the 
affair in a quite business-like way. Premeditated it with 
considerable precision, in fact, and yet in the end he had 
died with that stare of horror and madness in his face. 
Father Roland spread the blanket over him again after he 
had placed the packet in his own coat. He knew where 
Tavish’s pick and shovel were hanging at the back of the 
cabin and he brought these tools and placed them be- 



136 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

side the body. After that he rejoined David and the 
Cree. 

They were still searching, and finding nothing. 

“I have been looking through his clothes—out there,” 
said the Missioner, with a shuddering gesture which in¬ 
timated that his task had been as fruitless as their own. 
“We may as well bury him. A shallow grave, close to 
where his body lies. I have placed a pick and a shovel on 
the spot.” He spoke to David: “ Would you mind help¬ 
ing Mukoki to dig? I would like to be alone for a little 
while. You understand. There are things . . 

“I understand, Father.” 

For the first time David felt something of the awe of this 
thing that was death. He had forgotten, almost, that 
Father Roland was a servant of God, so vitally human had 
he found him, so unlike all other men of his calling he had 
ever known. But it was impressed upon him now, as he 
followed Mukoki. Father Roland wanted to be alone* 
Perhaps to pray. To ask mercy for Tavish’s soul. To 
plead for its guidance into the Great Unknown. The 
thought quieted his own emotions, and as he began to dig 
in the hard snow and frozen earth he tried to think of 
Tavish as a man, and not as a monster. 

In the cabin Father Roland waited until he heard the 
beat of the pick before he moved. Then he fastened the 
cabin door with a wooden bolt and sat himself down at the 
table, with the lamp close to his bent head and Tavish’s 
confession in his hands. He cut the babiche threads with 
his knife, unfolded the sheets of paper and began to read, 
while Tavish’s mice nosed slyly out of their murky corner* 
wondering at the new and sudden stillness in the cabin and. 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOOxNE 137 

it may be, stirred into restlessness by the absence of their 
master. 


The ground under the snow was discouragingly hard. 
To David the digging of the grave seemed like chipping out 
bits of flint from a solid block, and he soon turned over the 
pick to Mukoki. Alternately they worked for an hour, 
and each time that the Cree took his place David wondered 
what was keeping the Missioner so long in the cabin. At 
last Mukoki intimated with a sweep of his hands and a 
hunch of his shoulders that their work was done. The 
grave looked very shallow to David, and he was about to 
protest against his companion’s judgment when it occurred 
to him that Mukoki had probably digged many holes such 
as this in the earth, and had helped to fill them again, so it 
was possible he knew his business. After all, why did 
people weigh down one’s last slumber with six feet of soil 
overhead when three or four would leave one nearer to the 
sun, and make not quite so chill a bed? He was thinking 
of this as he took a last look at Tavish. Then he heard 
the Indian give a sudden grunt, as if some one had poked 
him unexpectedly in the pit of the stomach. He whirled 
about, and stared. 

Father Roland stood within ten feet of them, and at 
sight of him an exclamation rose to David’s lips and died 
there in an astonished gasp. He seemed to be swaying, 
like a sick man, in the moonlight, and impelled by the 
same thought Mukoki and David moved toward him. 
The Missioner extended an arm, as if to hold them back. 
His face was ghastly, and terrible—almost as terrible as 



138 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


Tavish’s, and he seemed to be struggling with something 
in his throat before he could speak. Then he said, in a 
strange, forced voice that David had never heard come 
from his lips before: 

“Bury him. There will be—no prayer.” 

He turned away, moving slowly in the direction of the 
forest. And as he went David noticed the heavy drag oi 
his feet, and the unevenness of his trail in the snow. 



CHAPTER XIII 


OR two or three minutes after Father Roland had 



disappeared in the forest David and Mukoki stood 


-A- without moving. Amazed and a little stunned by 
the change they had seen in the Missioner’s ghastly face, 
and perplexed by the strangeness of his voice and the un¬ 
steadiness of his walk as he had gone away from them, they 
looked expectantly for him to return out of the shadows of 
the timber. His last words had come to them with metal¬ 
lic hardness, and their effect, in a way, had been rather 
appalling: “There will be—no prayer.” Why? The 
question was in Mukoki’s gleaming, narrow eyes as he 
faced the dark spruce, and it was on David’s lips as 
he turned at last to look at the Cree. There was to 
be no prayer for Tavish! David felt himself shudder¬ 
ing, when suddenly, breaking the silence like a sinister 
cackle, an exultant exclamation burst from the Indian, 
as though, all at once, understanding had dawned 
upon him. He pointed to the dead man, his eyes widen¬ 
ing. 

“Tavish—he great devil,” he said. 66 Mon Pere make 
no prayer. Mey-oo !” and he grinned in triumph, for had 
he not, during all these months, told his master that Tavish 
was a devil, and that his cabin was filled with little devils? 
'* Mey-oo” he cried again, louder than before. “A devil!” 
and with a swift, vengeful movement he sprang to Tavish* 
139 




140 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

caught him by his moccasined feet, and to David’s horror 
flung him fiercely into the shallow grave. “A devil!” he 
croaked again, and like a madman began throwing in the 
frozen earth upon the body. 

David turned away, sickened by the thud of the body 
and the fall of the clods on its upturned face—for he had 
caught a last unpleasant glimpse of the face, and it was 
staring and grinning up at the stars. A feeling of dread 
followed him into the cabin. He filled the stove, and sat 
down to wait for Father Roland. It was a long wait. 
He heard Mukoki go away. The mice rustled about him 
again. An hour had passed when he heard a sound at the 
door, a scraping sound, like the peculiar drag of claws over 
wood, and a moment later it was followed by a whine that 
came to him faintly. He opened the door slowly. Baree 
stood just outside the threshold. He had given him two 
fish at noon, so he knew that it was not hunger that had 
brought the dog to the cabin. Some mysterious instinct 
had told him that David was alone; he wanted to come 
in; his yearning gleamed in his eyes as he stood there stiff¬ 
legged in the moonlight. David held out a hand, on the 
point of enticing him through the door, when he heard the 
soft crunching of feet in the snow. A gray shadow, swift 
as the wind, Baree disappeared. David scarcely knew 
when he went. He was looking into the face of Father 
Roland. He backed into the cabin, without speaking, and 
the Missioner entered. He was smiling. He had, to an 
extent, recovered himself. He threw off his mittens and 
rasped his hands over the fire in an effort at cheerfulness. 
But there was something forced in his manner, something 
that he was making a terrific fight to keep under. He was 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 141 

tike one who had been in great mental stress for many days 
instead of a single hour. His eyes burned with the 
smouldering glow of a fever; his shoulders hung loosely 
as though he had lost the strength to hold them erect; 
he shivered, David noticed, even as he rubbed his hands and 
smiled. 

“Curious how this has affected me, David,” he said 
apologetically. “It is incredible, this weakness of mine. 
I have seen death many scores of times, and yet I could 
not go and look on his face again. Incredible! Yet it is 
so. I am anxious to get away. Mukoki will soon be 
coming with the dogs. A devil, Mukoki says. Well, 
perhaps. A strange man at best. We must forget this 
night. It has been an unpleasant introduction for you 
into our North. We must forget it. We must forget 
Tavish.” And then, as if he had omitted a fact of some 
importance, he added: “I will kneel at his graveside 
before we go.” 

“If he had only waited,” said David, scarcely knowing 
what words he was speaking, “if he had waited until 
to-morrow, only, or the next day . . .” 

“Yes; if he had waited!” 

The Missioner’s eyes narrowed. David heard the click 
of his jaws as he dropped his head so that his face was 
aidden. 

“If he had waited,” he repeated, after David, “if he 
had only waited!” And his hands, spread out fan-like 
over the stove, closed slowly and rigidly as if gripping at 
the throat of something. 

“I have friends up in that country he came from,” 
David forced himself to say, ,; and I had hoped he would 



142 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

be able to tell me something about them. He must have 
known them, or heard of them.” 

“Undoubtedly,” said the Missioner, still looking at the 
top of the stove, and unclenching his fingers as slowly as 
he had drawn them together, “ but he is dead.” 

There was a note of finality in his voice, a sudden forceful¬ 
ness of meaning as he raised his head and looked at David. 

“Dead,” he repeated, “and buried. We are no longer 
privileged even to guess at what he might have said. As 
I told you once before, David, I am not a Catholic, nor a 
Church-of-England man, nor of any religion that wears 
a name, and yet I accepted a little of them all into my 
own creed. A wandering Missioner—and I am such a 
one—must obliterate to an extent his own deep-souled 
convictions and accept indulgently all articles of Christian 
faith; and there is one law, above all others, which he 
must hold inviolate. He must not pry into the past of the 
dead, nor speak aloud the secrets of the living. Let us 
forget Tavish.” 

His words sounded a knell in David’s heart. If he had 
hoped that Father Roland would, at the very last, tell him 
something more about Tavish, that hope was now gone. 
The Missioner spoke in a voice that was almost gentle, 
and he came to David and put a hand on his shoulder as a 
father might have done with a son. He had placed him¬ 
self, in this moment, beyond the reach of any questions 
that might have been in David’s mind. With eyes and 
touch that spoke a deep affection he had raised a barrier 
between them as inviolable as that law of his creed which 
he had just mentioned. And with it had come a bettei 
understanding. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 143 

David was glad that Mukoki’s voice and the commotion 
of the dogs came to interrupt them. They gathered up 
hurriedly the few things they had brought into the cabin 
and carried them to the sledge. David did not enter 
the cabin again but stood with the dogs in the edge of the 
timber, while Father Roland made his promised visit to 
the grave. Mukoki followed him, and as the Missioner 
stood over the dark mound in the snow, David saw the 
Cree slip like a shadow into the cabin, where a light was 
still burning. Then he noticed that Father Roland was 
kneeling, and a moment later the Indian came out of the 
cabin quietly, and without looking back joined him near 
the dogs. They waited. 

Over Tavish’s grave Father Roland's lips were moving, 
and out of his mouth strange words came in a low and 
unemotional voice that was not much above a whisper: 

. . and I thank God that you did not tell me 

before you died, Tavish,” he was saying. “I thank God 
for that. For if you had—I would have killed you! ” 

As he came back to them David noticed a flickering of 
light in the cabin, as though the lamp was sputtering and 
about to go out. They put on their snow shoes, and with 
Mukoki breaking the trail buried themselves in the moon¬ 
lit forest. 

Half an hour later they halted on the summit of a 
second ridge. The Cree looked back and pointed with 
an exultant cry. Where the cabin had been a red flare of 
flame was rising above the tree tops. David understood 
what the flickering light in the cabin had meant. Mukoki 
had spilled Tavish’s kerosene and had touched a match 
to it so that the little devils might follow their master into 




144 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


the black abyss. He almost fancied he could hear the 
agonized squeaking of Tavish’s pets. 


Straight northward, through the white moonlight of 
that night, Mukoki broke their trail, travelling at times so 
swiftly that the Missioner commanded him to slacken his 
pace on David’s account. Even David did not think of 
stopping. He had no desire to stop so long as their way 
was lighted ahead of them. It seemed to him that the 
world was becoming brighter and the forest gloom less 
cheerless as they dropped that evil valley of Tavish’s 
farther and farther behind them. Then the moon began 
to fade, like a great lamp that had burned itself out of oil, 
and darkness swept over them like huge wings. It was 
two o’clock when they camped and built a fire. 

So, day after day, they continued into the North. At 
the end of his tenth day—the sixth after leaving Tavish’s 
*—David felt that he was no longer a stranger in the coun¬ 
try of the big snows. He did not say as much to Father 
Roland, for to express such a thought to one who had lived 
there all his life seemed to him to be little less than a bit 
of sheer imbecility. Ten days! That was all, and yet 
they might have been ten months, or as many years for 
that matter, so completely had they changed him. He was 
not thinking of himself physically—not a day passed that 
Father Roland did not point out some fresh triumph for 
him there. His limbs were nearly as tireless as the Mis¬ 
sioner’s; he knew that he was growing heavier; and he 
could at last chop through a tree without winding himself. 
These things his companions could see. His appetite was 




THE COURAGE OF MARGE CTDOONE 145 


voracious. His eyes were keen and his hands steady, so 
that he was doing splendid practice shooting with both 
rifle and pistol, and each day when the Missioner insisted 
on their bout with the gloves he found it more and more 
difficult to hold himself in. “Not so hard, David,” 
Father Roland frequently cautioned him, and in place of 
the first joyous grin there was always a look of settled 
anxiety in Mukoki’s face as he watched them. The more 
David pummelled him, the greater was the Little Mis- 
sioner’s triumph. “I told you what this north country 
could do for you,” was his exultant slogan; “I told you!” 

Once David was on the point of telling him that he could 
see only the tenth part of what it had done for him, but 
the old shame held his tongue. He did not want to bring 
up the old story. The fact that it had existed, and had 
Written itself out in human passion, remained wdth him 
still as a personal and humiliating degradation. It was 
like a scar on his own body, a repulsive sore which he 
wished to keep out of sight, even from the eyes of the man 
who had been his salvation. The growth of this revulsion 
within him had kept pace with his physical improvement, 
and if at the end of these ten days Father Roland had 
spoken of the woman who had betrayed him—the woman 
who had been his wife—he would have turned the key on 
that subject as decisively as the Missioner had banned 
further conversation or conjecture about Tavish. This 
was, perhaps, the best evidence that he had cut out the 
cancer in his breast. The Golden Goddess, whom he had 
thought an angel, he now saw stripped of her glory. If she 
had repented in that room, if she had betrayed fear even, 
a single emotion of mental agony, he would not have felt 



146 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


so sure of himself. But she had laughed. She was, like 
Tavish, a devil. He thought of her beauty now as that of a 
poisonous flower. He had unwittingly touched such a 
flower once, a flower of wonderful waxen loveliness, and 
it had produced a pustular eruption on his hand. She 
was like that. Poisonous. Treacherous. A creature with 
as little soul as that flower had perfume. It was this 
change in him, in his conception and his memory of her, 
that he would have given much to have Father Roland 
understand. 

During this period of his own transformation he had 
observed a curious change in Father Roland. At times, 
after leaving Tavish’s cabin, the Little Missioner seemed 
struggling under the weight of a deep and gloomy oppres¬ 
sion. Once or twice, in the firelight, it had looked almost 
like sickness, and David had seen his face grow wan and 
old. Always after these fits of dejection there would 
follow a reaction, and for hours the Missioner would be like 
one upon whom had fallen a new and sudden happiness. 
As day added itself to day, and night to night, the periods 
of depression became shorter and less frequent, and at last 
Father Roland emerged from them altogether, as though 
he had been fighting a great fight, and had won. There 
was a new lustre in his eyes. David wondered whether 
it was a trick of his imagination that made him think the 
lines in the Missioner’s face were not so deep, that he 
stood straighter, and that there was at times a deep and 
vibrant note in his voice which he had not heard before. 

During these days David was trying hard to make 
himself believe that no reasonable combination of cir¬ 
cumstances could have associated Tavish with the girl 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 147 

whose picture he kept in the breast pocket of his coat. 
He succeeded in a way. He tried also to dissociate the 
face in the picture from a living personality. In this he 
failed. More and more the picture became a living thing 
for him. He found a great comfort in his possession of it. 
He made up his mind that he would keep it, and that its 
sweet face, always on the point of speaking to him, should 
go with him wherever he went, guiding him in a way—a 
companion. He found that, in hours when the darkness 
and the emptiness of his life oppressed him, the face gave 
him new hope, and he saw new light. He ceased to think 
of it as a picture, and one night, speaking half aloud, he 
called her Little Sister. She seemed nearer to him after 
that. Unconsciously his hand learned the habit of going 
to his breast pocket when they were travelling, to make sure 
that she was there. He would have suffered physical 
torment before he would have confided all this to any 
living soul, but the secret thought that was growing more 
and more in his heart he told to Baree. The dog came into 
their camps now, but not until the Missioner and Mukoki 
had gone to bed. He would cringe down near David’s 
feet, lying there motionless, oblivious of the other dogs and 
showing no inclination to disturb them. He was there on 
the tenth night, looking steadily at David with his two 
bloodshot eyes, wondering what it was that his master 
held in his hands. From the lips and eyes of the Girl, 
trembling and aglow in the firelight, David looked at Baree. 
In the bloodshot eyes he saw the immeasurable faith of an 
adoring slave. He knew that Baree would never leave 
him. And the Girl, looking at him as steadily as Bare^ 
would never leave him. There was a tremendous thrill ir. 



148 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


the thought. He leaned over the dog, and with a tremu¬ 
lous stir in his voice, he whispered: 

“Some day, boy, we may go to her.” 

Baree shivered with joy. David’s voice, whispering to 
him in that way, was like a caress, and he whined softly as 
he crept an inch or two nearer to his master’s feet. 

That night Father Roland was restless. Hours later, 
when he was lying snug and warm in his own blankets, 
David heard him get up, and watched him as he scraped 
together the burned embers of the fire and added fresh fuel 
to them. The flap of the tent was back a little, so that he 
could see plainly. It could not have been later than mid¬ 
night. The Missioner was fully dressed, and as the fire 
burned brighter David could see the ruddy glow of his face, 
and it struck him that it looked singularly boyish in the 
flame-glow. He did not guess what was keeping the 
Missioner awake until a little later he heard him among the 
dogs, and his voice came to him, low and exultingly, and as 
boyish as his face had seemed: “We’ll be home to-mor¬ 
row, boys— home!” That word—home—sounded oddly 
enough to David up here three hundred miles from civili¬ 
zation. He fancied that he heard the dogs shuffling in the 
snow, and the satisfied rasping of their master’s hands. 

Father Roland did not return into the tent again that 
night. David fell asleep, but was roused for breakfast at 
three o’clock, and they were away before it was yet light. 
Through the morning darkness Mukoki led the way as 
unerringly as a fox, for he was now on his own ground. 
As dawn came, with a promise of sun, David wondered in 
a whimsical sort of way whether his companions, both 
dogs and men, were going mad. He had not as yet ex 


THE COURAGE OF MaRGE O’DOONE 149 

perienced the joy and excitement of a northern home¬ 
coming, nor had he dreamed that it was possible for Mu- 
koki’s leathern face to break into wild jubilation. As the 
first rays of the sun shot over the forests, he began, all at 
once, to sing, in a low, chanting voice that grew steadily 
louder; and as he sang he kept time in a curious way with 
his hands. He did not slacken his pace, but kept steadily 
on, and suddenly the Little Missioner joined him in a voice 
that rang out like the blare of a bugle. To David’s ears 
there was something familiar in that song as it rose wildly 
on the morning air. 

“ Pa sho ke non ze koon, 

Ta ba nin ga, 

Ah no go suh nuh guk, 

Na quash kuh mon; 

Na guh mo yah nin koo. 

Pa sho ke non ze koon, 

Pa sho ke non ze koon, 

Ta ba nin go.” 

“What is it?” he asked, when Father Roland dropped 
back to his side, smiling and breathing deeply. “ It sounds 
like a Chinese puzzle, and yet . . .” 

The Missioner laughed. Mukoki had ended a second 
verse. 

“Twenty years ago, when I first knew Mukoki, he would 
chant nothing but Indian legends to the beat of a tom¬ 
tom,” he explained. “ Since I’ve had him he has developed 
a passion for ‘mission singing’—for hymns. That was 
Nearer, my God, to Thee.’” 

Mukoki, gathering wind, had begun again. 

“That’s his favourite.” explained Father Roland. “At 



150 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


times, when he is alone, he will chant it by the hour. He 
is delighted when I join in with him. It’s ‘From Green' 
land’s Icy Mountains.’” 

“Ke wa de noong a yah jig, 

Kuh ya ’gewh wah bun oong, 

E gewh an duh nuh ke jig, 

E we de ke zhah tag, 

Kuh ya puh duh ke woo waud 
Palm e nuh sah wunzh eeg, 

Ke nun doo me goo nah nig 

Che shuh wa ne mung wah.” 

At first David had felt a slight desire to laugh at the 
Cree’s odd chanting and the grotesque movement of his 
hands and arms, like two pump handles in slow and rhyth¬ 
mic action, as he kept time. This desire did not come to 
him again during the day. He remembered, long years ago, 
hearing his mother sing those old hymns in his boyhood 
home. He could see the ancient melodeon with its yellow 
keys, and the ragged hymn book his mother had prized 
next to her Bible; and he could hear again her sweet, 
quavering voice sing those gentle songs, like unforgettable 
benedictions—the same songs that Mukoki and the 
Missioner were chanting now, up here, a thousand miles 
away. That was a long time ago—a very, very long time 
ago. She had been dead many years. And he—he must 
be growing old. Thirty-eight! And he was nine then, 
with slender legs and tousled hair, and a worship for his 
mother that had mellowed and perhaps saddened his whole 
life. It was a long time ago. But the songs had lived. 
They must be known over the whole world—those songs 
his mother used to sing. He began to join in where he 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 151 


could catch the tunes, and his voice sounded strange and 
broken and unreal to him, for it was a long time since those 
boyhood days, and he had not lifted it in song since he had 
sung then—with his mother. 

It was growing dusk when they came to the Missioner’s 
home on God’s Lake. It was almost a chateau, David 
thought when he first saw it, built of massive logs. Be¬ 
yond it there was a smaller building, also built of logs, and 
toward this Mukoki hurried with the dogs and the sledge. 
He heard the welcoming cries of Mukoki’s family and the 
excited barking of dogs as he followed Father Roland into 
the big cabin. It was lighted, and warm. Evidently 
some one had been keeping it in readiness for the Mission- 
er’s return. They entered into a bigsroom, and in his first 
glance David saw three doors leading from this room: two 
of them were open, the third was closed. There was 
something very like a sobbing note in Father Roland’s 
voice as he opened his arms wide, and said to David: 

“Home, David—your home!” 

He took off his things—his coat, his cap, his moccasins, 
and his thick German socks—and when he again spoke to 
David and looked at him, his eyes had in them a mysteri¬ 
ous light and his words trembled with suppressed emotion. 

“You will forgive me, David—you will forgive me a 
weakness, and make yourself at home—while I go alone 
for a few minutes into . . . that . . . room?” 

He rose from the chair on which he had seated himself 
to strip off his moccasins and faced the closed door. He 
seemed to forget David after he had spoken. He went to 
it slowlv, his breath coming quickly, and when he reached 




152 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


it he drew a heavy key from his pocket. He unlocked the 
door. It was dark inside, and David could see nothing as 
the Missioner entered. For many minutes he sat where 
Father Roland had left him, staring at the door. 

“A strange man—a very strange man!” Thoreau had 
said. Yes, a strange man! What was in that room? 
Why its unaccountable silence? Once he thought he 
heard a low cry. For ten minutes he sat, waiting. And 
then—very faintly at first, almost like a wind soughing 
through distant tree tops and coming ever nearer, nearer, 
and more distinct—there came to him from beyond the 
closed door the gently subdued music of a violin. 


CHAPTER XIV 


I N THE days and weeks that followed, this room 
beyond the closed door, and what it contained, be¬ 
came to David more and more the great mystery in 
Father Roland’s life. It impressed itself upon him slowly 
but resolutely as the key to some tremendous event in his 
life, some vast secret which he was keeping from all other 
human knowledge, unless, perhaps, Mukoki was a silent 
sharer. At times David believed this was so, and espe¬ 
cially after that day when, carefully and slowly, and in 
good English, as though the Missioner had trained him in 
what he was to say, the Cree said to him: 

“No one ever goes into that room, m’sieu. And no 
man has ever seen mon Pere's violin.” 

The words were spoken in a low monotone without 
emphasis or emotion, and David was convinced they were 
a message from the Missioner, something Father Roland 
wanted him to know without speaking the words himself. 
Not again after that first night did he apologize for his 
visits to the room, nor did he ever explain why the door 
was always locked, or why he invariably locked it after 
him when he went in. Each night, when they were at 
home, he disappeared into the room, opening the door 
only enough to let his body pass through; sometimes he 
remained there for only a few minutes, and occasionally 
lor a long time. At least once a day, usually in the even- 

153 



154 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


ing, he played the violin. It was always the same piece 
that he played. There was never a variation, and David 
could not make up his mind that he had ever heard it 
before. At these times, if Mukoki happened to be in the 
Chateau, as Father Roland called his place, he would sit 
like one in a trance, scarcely breathing until the music 
had ceased. And when the Missioner came from the room 
his face was always lit up in a kind of halo. There was one 
exception to all this, David noticed. The door was never 
unlocked when there was a visitor. No other but himself 
and Mukoki heard the sound of the violin, and this fact, 
in time, impressed David with the deep faith and affection 
of the Little Missioner. One evening Father Roland 
came from the room with his face aglow with some strange 
happiness that had come to him in there, and placing his 
hands on David’s shoulders he said, with a yearning and 
yet hopeless inflection in his voice; 

“I wish you would stay with me always, David. It has 
made me younger, and happier, to have a son.” 

In David there was growing—but concealed from Father 
Roland’s eyes for a long time—a strange insistent rest¬ 
lessness. It ran in his blood, like a thing alive, when¬ 
ever he looked at the face of the Girl. He wanted to go 
on. 

And yet life at the Chateau, after the first two weeks, 
was anything but dull and unexciting. They were in the 
heart of the great trapping country. Forty miles to the 
north was a fur-trading post where an ordained minister 
of the Church of England had a mission. Rut Father 
Roland belonged to the forest people alone. They were 
his “children,” scattered in their shacks and tepees over 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 155 


ten thousand square miles of country, with the Chateau 
as its centre. He was ceaselessly on the move after that 
first fortnight, and David was always with him. The 
Indians worshipped him, and the quarter-breeds and half- 
breeds and occasional French called him “mon Pere” 
in very much the same tone of voice as they said “Our 
Father ” in their prayers. These people of the trap-lines 
were a revelation to David. They were wild, living in a 
savage primitiveness, and yet they reverenced a divinity 
with a conviction that amazed him. 

They had none of the social life and religious ceremonies 
usual among Indians living farther south. They could not 
feed themselves if they gathered in numbers large enough 
to make these possible, but cherished the thought of the 
Great Spirit, and they listened to the Missioner. 

Their life was hard and simple, and David understood, 
after awhile, why a country ten times as large as the 
state of Ohio had altogether a population of less than 
twenty-five thousand, a fair-sized town. The trapping 
would feed no greater number. In the long, terrible 
months of winter they followed the trap-lines from their 
conical lodges, each family by itself, twenty, thirty, sixty 
miles apart. Each family had its own hunting territory, 
the boundaries well known to all, and handed down from 
father to son for generations as its source of livelihood. 
For a strange Indian who trapped in this domain the 
penalty was death, for through the forest and over the 
icy lakes wandered scarcely enough fur-bearing animals 
for the rightful owner, his wife and children. 

A blizzard, the still cold that kept the rabbits on which 
men and animals relied for food in the snow, and there 


156 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


would be hunger—a hunger that brought sickness, and 
then death. Scattered miles apart, their kin could not aid. 
An outbreak of measles might kill grown men and women 
before the Missioner or the fur traders could bring medi¬ 
cine. It could not be helped. The land was not suitable 
for farming. It was hunt or starve, with the life of each 
dependent on his skill with trap or gun. 

And yet David could not but feel more and more deeply 
the thrill, the fascination, and, in spite of its hardships, 
the recompense of this life of which he had become a 
part. For the first time he clearly perceived the primal 
measurements of riches, of contentment, and of ambition, 
and, in the light of those many other things which he 
had not understood, or in blindness had failed to see, 
in the life from which he had come. 

They were over at Metoosin’s, sixty miles to the west 
of the Chateau, when Metoosin returned to his shack 
with a little treasure of food from the post. Metoosin 
did not know he was poor, did not fear because in his cache 
were not meat and flour enough to last him the winter. 
He was rich! He was a great trapper! And his Cree 
wife I-owa, with her long, sleek braid and her great, dark 
eyes, was tremendously proud of her lord, that he should 
bring home for her and the children such a wealth of tilings 
—a little flour, a few cans of things, a few yards of cloth, 
and a little bright ribbon. David choked when he ate 
with them that night. But they were happy! That, 
after all, was the reward of things. 

And there were, in the domain of Father Roland, many 
Metoosins, and many I-owas, who prayed for nothing more 
than enough to eat, clothes to cover them, and the un- 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 157 

broken love of their firesides. And David thought of 
them, as the weeks passed, as the most terribly enslaved 
of all the slaves of Civilization—slaves of vain civilized 
women; for they had gone on like this for centuries, and 
would go on for other generations, giving into the hands 
of the fur traders their life’s blood which, in the end, 
could be accounted for by a yearly dole of food which, 
under stress, did not quite serve to keep body and soul 
together. 

It was after a comprehension of these things that David 
understood Father Roland’s great work. In this kingdom 
of his, running approximately fifty miles in each direction 
from the Chateau—except to the northward, where the 
Post lay—there were two hundred and forty-seven men, 
women, and children. In a great book the Little Missioner 
had their names, their ages, the blood that was in them, 
and where they lived; and by them he was worshipped 
as no man that ever lived in that vast country of cities 
and towns below the Height of Land. At every tepee and 
shack they visited there was some token of love awaiting 
Father Roland; a rare skin here, a pair of moccasins there, 
a pair of snow shoes that it had taken an Indian woman’s 
hands weeks to make, choice cuts of meat, but mostly— 
as they travelled along—the thickly furred skins of animals; 
and never did they go to a place at which the Missioner 
did not leave something in return, usually some article of 
clothing so thick and warm that no Indian was rich enough 
to buy it for himself at the Post. Twice each winter 
Father Roland sent down to Thoreau a great sledge load 
of these contributions of his people, and Thoreau, selling 
them, sent back a still greater sledge load of supplies that 


158 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


found their way in this manner of exchange into the shacks 
and tepees of the forest people. 

“If I were only rich!” said Father Roland one night at 
tJhe Chateau, when it was storming dismally outside. “ But 
I have nothing, David. I can do only a tenth of what I 
would like to do. There are only eighty families in this 
country of mine, and I have learned that a very few warm 
garments and sacks of flour, given at the right time, at 
the very moment they are needed, will keep them all in 
comfort through the longest and hardest winter. They 
cannot be taught not to depend on game for food, and 
every seven years the rabbits catch some plague and 
vanish, though the year before they were plentiful. Then 
there is little game, little food. It is terrible, but what 
can I do? Last year the hunting was good, they will 
gay, and use their supplies in summer, at the annual 
feast near the trading post. Then winter comes, and 
they go hungry. Had I money I could care for them.” 

David had been thinking of that. In the late January 
snow two teams went down to Thoreau in place of one. 
Mukoki had charge of them, and with him went an even 
half of what David had brought with him—fifteen hundred 
dollars in gold certificates. 

“HI live I’m going to make them a Christmas present 
each year,” David said. “I can afford it. I fancy that 
I shall take a great pleasure in it, and that occasionally 
1 shall return into this country to make a visit.” 

It was the first time he had spoken as though he would 
aot remain with the Missioner indefinitely. But the 
conviction that the time was not far away when he would 
be leaving him had been growing within him steadily. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 150 

He kept it to himself. He fought against it even. But it 
grew. And, curiously enough, it was strongest when 
Father Roland was in the locked room playing softly on 
the violin. David never mentioned the room. He feigned 
an indifference to its very existence. And yet in spite of 
himself the mystery of it became an obsession with him. 
Something within it seemed to reach out insistently and 
invite him in, like a spirit chained there by the Missioner 
himself, crying for freedom. One night they returned to 
the Chateau through a blizzard from the cabin of a half- 
breed whose wife was sick, and after their supper the 
Missioner went into the mystery-room. He played the 
violin as usual. But after that there was a long silence. 
When Father Roland came out, and seated himself op¬ 
posite David at the small table on which their books were 
scattered, David received a shock. Clinging to the Mis- 
sioner’s shoulder, shimmering like a polished silken thread 
in the lampglow, was a long, shining hair—a woman’s 
hair. With an effort David choked back the word of 
amazement in his throat, and began turning over the pages 
of a book. And then suddenly, the Missioner saw that 
silken thread. David heard his quick breath. He saw, 
without raising his eyes, the slow, almost stealthy move¬ 
ment of his companion’s fingers as he plucked the hair 
from his arm and shoulder, and when David looked up the 
hair was gone, and one of Father Roland’s hands was 
closed tightly, so tightly that the veins stood out on it. 
He rose from the table, and again went into the room 
beyond the locked door. David’s heart was beating like 
an unsteady hammer. He could not quite account for 
the strange effect this incident had upon him He wanted 


160 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


more than ever to see that room beyond the locked 
door. 

February—the Hunger Moon—of this year was a month 
of great storm in the Northland. This meant sickness, 
and a great deal of travel for Father Roland. He and 
David were almost ceaselessly on the move, and its hard¬ 
ships gave the finishing touches to David’s education. 
The wilderness, vast and empty as it was, no longer held 
a dread for him. He had faced its bitterest storms; he 
had slept with the deep snow under his blankets; he had 
followed behind the Missioner through the blackest nights, 
when it had seemed as though no human soul could find 
its way; and he had looked on death. Once they ran 
swiftly to it through a night blizzard; again it came, three 
in a family, so far to the west that it was out of Father 
Roland’s beaten trails; and again he saw it in the Madonna¬ 
like face of a young French girl, who had died clutching a 
cross to her breast. It was this girl’s white face, sweet as a 
child’s and strangely beautiful in death, that stirred David 
most deeply. She must have been about the age of the 
girl whose picture he carried next his heart. 

Soon after this, early in March, he had definitely made 
up his mind. There was no reason now why he should not 
go on. He was physically fit. Three months had hard¬ 
ened him until he was like a rock. He believed that he had 
more than regained his weight. He could beat Father 
Roland with either rifle or pistol, and in one day he had 
travelled forty miles on snow shoes. That was when they 
had arrived just in time to save the life of Jean Croisset’s 
little girl, who lived over on the Rig Thunder. The crazed 
father had led them a mad race, but they had kept up 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O DOONE 161 

with him. And just in time. There had not been an 
hour to lose. After that Croisset and his half-breed wife 
would have laid down their lives for Father Roland—and for 
him. For the forest people had begun to accept him as a 
part of Father Roland; more and more he could see their 
growing love for him, their gladness when he came, their 
sorrow w T hen he left, and it gave him what he thought of as 
a sort of filling satisfaction, something he had never quite 
fully experienced before in all his life. He knew that he 
would come back to them again some day—that, in the 
course of his life, he would spend a great deal of time 
among them. He assured Father Roland of this. 

The Missioner did not question him deeply about his 
“friends” in the western mountains. But night after 
night he helped him to mark out a trail on the maps that 
he had at the Chateau, giving him a great deal of informa¬ 
tion which David wrote down in a book, and letters to 
certain good friends of his whom he would find along the 
way. As the slush snow came, and the time when David 
would be leaving drew nearer, Father Roland could not 
entirely conceal his depression, and he spent more time in 
the room beyond the locked door. Several times when 
about to enter the room he seemed to hesitate, as if there 
were something which he wanted to say to David. Twice 
David thought he was almost on the point of inviting him 
into the room, and at last he came to believe that the 
Missioner wanted him to know what was beyond that 
mysterious door, and yet was afraid to tell him, or ask him 
in. It was well along in March that the thing happened 
which he had been expecting. Only it came in a manner 
that amazed him deeply. Father Roland came from the 



162 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

room early in the evening, after playing his violin. Ho 
locked the door, and as he put on his cap he said: 

“I shall be gone for an hour, David. I am going over 
to Mukoki’s cabin.” 

He did not ask David to accompany him, and as he 
turned to go the key that he had held in his hand dropped 
to the floor. It fell with a quite audible sound. The 
Missioner must have heard it, and would have recovered 
it had it slipped from his fingers accidentally. But he 
paid no attention to it. He went out quickly, without 
glancing back. 

For several minutes David stared at the key without 
moving from his chair near the table. It meant but one 
thing. He was invited to go into that room— alone. If 
he had had a doubt it was dispelled by the fact that Father 
Roland had left a light burning in there. It was not 
chance. There was a purpose to it all: the light, the 
audible dropping of the heavy key, the swift going of the 
Missioner. David made himself sure of this before he rose 
from his chair. He waited perhaps five minutes. Then 
he picked up the key. 

At the door, as the key clicked in the lock, he hesitated. 
The thought came to him that if he was making a mistake 
it would be a terrible mistake. It held his hand for a 
moment. Then, slowly, he pushed the door inward and 
followed it until he stood inside. The first thing that he 
noticed was a big brass lamp, of the old style, brought over 
from England by some trader a hundred years ago, and 
he held his breath in anticipation of something tremendous 
impending. At first he saw nothing that impressed him 
forcibly. The room was a disappointment in that first 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 163 


glance. He could see nothing of its mystery, nothing ot 
that strangeness, quite indefinable even to himself, which 
he had expected. And then, as he stood there staring 
about with wide-open eyes, the truth flashed upon him 
with a suddenness that drew a quick breath from his lips. 
He was standing in a woman's room J There was no doubt. 

It looked very much as though a woman had left it only 
recently. There was a bed, fresh and clean, with a white 
counterpane. She had left on that bed a—nightgown» 
yes, and he noticed that it had a frill of lace at the neck. 
And on the wall were her garments, quite a number of 
them, and a long coat of a curious style, with a great fur 
collar. There was a small dresser, oddly antique, and on 
it were a brush and comb, a big red pin cushion, and odds 
and ends of a woman’s toilet affairs. Close to the bed 
were a pair of shoes and a pair of slippers, with unusually 
high heels, and hanging over the edge of the counterpane 
was a pair of long stockings. The walls of the room were 
touched up, as if by a woman’s hands, with pictures and 
a few ornaments. Where the garments were hanging 
David noticed a pair of woman’s snow shoes, and a woman’s 
moccasins under a picture of the Madonna. On the man¬ 
tel there was a tall vase filled with the dried stems of 
flowers. And then came the most amazing discovery of 
all. There was a second table between the lamp and the 
bed, and it was set for two! Yes, for two! No, for three! 
For, a little in shadow, David saw a crudely made 
high-chair—a baby’s chair—and on it were a little knife 
and fork, a baby spoon, and a little tin plate. It was 
astounding. Perfectly incredible. And David’s eyes 
sought questingly for a door through which a woman 


164 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


might come and go mysteriously and unseen. There was 
none, and the one window of the room was so high up that 
a person standing on the ground outside could not look in. 

And now it began to dawn upon David that all these 
things he was looking at were old—very old. In the 
Chateau the Missioner no longer ate on tin plates. The 
shoes and slippers must have been made a generation ago. 
The rag carpet under his feet had lost its vivid lines of 
colouring. Age impressed itself upon him. This was a 
woman’s room, but the woman had not been here recently. 
And the child had not been here recently. 

For the first time his eyes turned in a closer inspection of 
the table on which stood the big brass lamp. Father 
Roland’s violin lay beside it. He made a step or two 
nearer, so that he could see beyond the lamp, and his heart 
gave a sudden jump. Shimmering on the faded red cloth 
of the table, glowing as brightly as though it had been 
clipped from a woman’s head but yesterday, was a long, 
thick tress of hair! It was dark, richly dark, and his sec¬ 
ond impression was one of amazement at the length of it. 
The tress was as long as the table—fully a yard down the 
woman’s back it must have hung. It was tied at the end 
with a bit of white ribbon. 

David drew slowly back toward the door, stirred all at 
once by a great doubt. Had Father Roland meant him to 
look upon all this? A lump rose suddenly in his throat. 
He had made a mistake—a great mistake. He felt now 
like one who had broken into the sanctity of a sacred place. 
He had committed sacrilege. The Missioner had not 
dropped the key purposely. It must have been an acci¬ 
dent. And he—David—was guilty of a great blunder. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 165 


He withdrew from the room, and locked the door. He 
dropped the key where he had found it on the floor, and 
sat down again with his book. He did not read. He 
scarcely saw the lines of the printed page. He had not 
been in his chair more than ten minutes when he heard 
quick footsteps, followed by a hand at the door, and Father 
Roland came in. He was visibly excited, and his glance 
shot at once to the room which David had just left. Then 
his eyes scanned the floor. The key was gleaming where 
it had fallen, and with an exclamation of relief the Mission- 
er snatched it up. 

“I thought I had lost my key,” he laughed, a bit 
nervously; then he added, with a deep breath: “It’s 
snowing to-night. A heavy snow, and there will be good 
sledging for a few days. God knows I don’t want you to 
leave me, but if it must be—we should take advantage of 
this snow. It will be the last. Mukoki and I will go with 
you as far as the Reindeer Lake country, two hundred 
miles northwest. David —must you go?” 

It seemed to David that two tiny fists were pounding 
against his breast, where the picture lay. 

“Yes, I must go,” he said. “I have quite made up my 
mind to that. I must go.” 


CHAPTER XV 


fTT^EN days after that night when he had gone into the 
I mystery-room at the Chateau, David and Father 
Roland clasped hands in a final farewell at White 
Porcupine House, on the Cochrane River, 270 miles from 
God’s Lake. It was something more than a hand-shake. 
The Missioner made no effort to speak in these last 
moments. His team was ready for the return drive and 
he had drawn his travelling hood close about his face. In 
his own heart he believed that David would never return. 
He would go back to civilization, probably next autumn, 
and in time he would forget. As he said, on their last day 
before reaching the Cochrane, David’s going was like 
taking a part of his heart away. He blinked now, as he 
dropped David’s hand—blinked and turned his eyes. 
And David’s voice had an odd break in it. He knew what 
the Missioner was thinking. 

“I’ll come back, mon Pere” he called after him, as 
Father Roland broke away and went toward Mukoki and 
the dogs. “ I’ll come back next year! ” 

Father Roland did not look back until they were started. 
Then he turned and waved a mittened hand. Mukoki 
heard the sob in his throat. David tried to call a last 
word to him, but his voice choked. He, too, waved a 
hand. He had not known that there were friendships like 
this between men, and as the Missioner trailed steadily 




THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 167 

away from him, growing smaller and smaller against the 
dark rim of the distant forest, he felt a sudden fear and a 
great loneliness—a fear that, in spite of himself, they would 
not meet again, and the loneliness that comes to a man 
when he sees a world widening between himself and the 
one friend he has on earth. His one friend. The man 
who had saved him from himself, who had pointed out the 
way for him, who had made him fight. More than a 
friend; a father. He did not stop the broken sound that 
came to his lips. A low whine answered it, and he looked 
down at Baree, huddled in the snow within a yard of his 
feet. “My god and master,” Baree’s eyes said, as they 
looked up at him, “I am here.” It was as if David had 
heard the words. He held out a hand and Baree came to 
him, his great wolfish body aquiver with joy. After all, 
he was not alone. 

A short distance from him the Indian who was to take 
him over to Fond du Lac, on Lake Athabasca, was waiting 
with his dogs and sledge. He was a Sarcee, one of the 
last of an almost extinct tribe, so old that his hair was of a 
shaggy white, and he was so thin that he looked like a 
famine-stricken Hindu. “He has lived so long that no 
one knows his age,” Father Roland had said, “and he is 
the best trailer between Hudson’s Bay and the Peace.” 
His name was Upso-Gee (the Snow Fox), and the Mission- 
er had bargained with him for a hundred dollars to take 
David from White Porcupine House to Fond du Lac, three 
hundred miles farther northwest. He cracked his long 
caribou-gut whip to remind David that he was ready. 
David had said good-bye to the factor and the clerk at the 
Company store and there was no longer an excuse to detain 


168 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DQONE 


him. They struck out across a small lake. Five minutes 
later he looked back. Father Roland, not much more 
than a speck on the white plain now, was about to dis¬ 
appear in the forest. It seemed to David that he had 
stopped, and again he waved his hand, though human 
eyes could not have seen the movement over that distance. 

Not until that night, when David sat alone beside his 
campfire, did he begin to realize fully the vastness of this 
adventure into which he had plunged. The Snow Fox 
was dead asleep and it was horribly lonely. It was a 
dark night, too, with the shivering w T ailing of a restless 
wind in the tree tops; the sort of night that makes loneli¬ 
ness grow until it is like some kind of a monster inside, 
choking off one’s breath. And on Upso-Gee’s tepee, with 
the firelight dancing on it, there was painted in red a 
grotesque fiend with horns—a medicine man, or devil 
chaser; and this devil chaser grinned in a bloodthirsty 
manner at David as he sat near the fire, as if gloating over 
some dreadful fate that awaited him. It was lonely. 
Even Baree seemed to sense his master’s oppression, for 
he had laid his head between David’s feet, and was as 
still as if asleep. A long way off David could hear the 
howling of a wolf and it reminded him shiveringly of the 
lead-dog’s howl that night before Tavish’s cabin. It was 
like the death cry that comes from a dog’s throat; and 
where the forest gloom mingled with the firelight he saw a 
phantom shadow—in the morning he found that it was a 
spruce bough, broken and hanging down—that made him 
think again of Tavish swinging in the moonlight. His 
thoughts bore upon him deeply and with foreboding. 
And he asked himself questions—questions which were not 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 169 

new, but which came to him to-night with a new and deeper 
significance. He believed that Father Roland would have 
gasped in amazement and that he would have held up his 
hands in incredulity had he known the truth of this 
astonishing adventure of his. An astonishing adventure 
—nothing less. To find a girl. A girl he had never seen, 
who might be in another part of the world, when he had 
got to the end of his journey—or married. And if he 
found her, what would he say? What would he do? 
WTiy did he want to find her? “God alone knows,” he 
said aloud, borne down under his gloom, and went to bed. 

Small things, as Father Roland had frequently said, 
decide great events. The next morning came with a 
glorious sun; the world again was white and wonderful, 
and David found swift answers to the questions he had 
asked himself a few hours before. Each day thereafter 
the sun was warmer, and with its increasing promise of the 
final “break-up” and slush snows, Upso-Gee’s taciturnity 
and anxiety grew apace. He was little more talkative 
than the painted devil chaser on the blackened canvas of 
his tepee, but he gave David to understand that he would 
have a hard time getting back with his dogs and sledge 
from Fond du Lac if the thaw came earlier than he had 
anticipated. David marvelled at the old warrior’s en¬ 
durance, and especially when they crossed the forty miles 
of ice on Wollaston Lake between dawn and darkness. 
At high noon the snow was beginning to soften on the 
sunny slopes even then, and by the time they reached the 
Porcupine, Snow Fox was chanting his despairing prayer 
nightly before that grinning thing on his tepee. “Swas- 
tao (the thaw) she kam dam’ queek,” he said to David, 


170 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


grimacing his old face to express other things which he 
could not say in English. And it did. Four days later, 
when they reached Fond duLac, there was water underfoQt 
in places, and Upso-Gee turned back on the home trail 
within an hour. 

This was in April, and the Post reminded David of a 
great hive to which the forest people were swarming like 
treasure-laden bees. On the last snow they were coming 
in with their furs from a hundred trap-lines. Luck was 
with David. On the first day Baree fought with a huge 
malemute and almost killed it, and David, in separating 
the dogs, was slightly bitten by the malemute. A friend¬ 
ship sprang up instantly between the two masters. Bou- 
vais was a Frenchman from Horseshoe Bay, fifty miles from 
Fort Chippewyan, and a hundred and fifty straight west 
of Fond du Lac. He was a fox hunter. ‘‘I bring my furs 
over here, m’sieu,” he explained, “because I had a fight 
with the trader at Fort Chippewyan and broke out two cl 
his teeth,” which was sufficient explanation. He wa& 
delighted when he learned that David wanted to go west 
They started two days later with a sledge heavily laden 
with supplies. The runners sank deep in the growing 
slush, but under them was always the thick ice of Lake 
Athabasca, and going was not bad, except that David’s 
feet were always wet. He was surprised that he did no t 
take a “cold.” “A cold—what is that?” asked Bouvais, 
who had lived along the Barrens all his life. David de¬ 
scribed a typical case of sniffles, with running at eyes and 
nose, and Bouvais laughed. “The only cold we have up 
here is when the lungs get touched by frost,” he said, 
c ‘and then you die—the following spring. Always then, 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 171 

The lungs slough away.” And then he asked: “Why are 
you going west?” 

David found himself face to face with the question, and 
had to answer. “Just to toughen up a bit,” he replied. 
“Wandering. Nothing else to do.” And after all, he 
thought later, wasn’t that pretty near the truth? He 
tried to convince himself that it was. But his hand 
touched the picture of the Girl, in his breast pocket. 
He seemed to feel her throbbing against it. A prepos¬ 
terous imagination! But it was pleasing. It warmed his 
blood. 

For a week David and Baree remained at Horseshoe 
Bay with the Frenchman. Then they went on around 
the end of the lake toward Fort Chippewyan. Bouvais 
accompanied them, out of friendship purely, and they 
travelled afoot with fifty-pound packs on their shoulders, 
for in the big, sunlit reaches the ground was already grow¬ 
ing bare of snow. Bouvais turned back when they were 
ten miles from Fort Chippewyan, explaining that it was a 
nasty matter to have knocked two teeth down a trader’s 
throat, and particularly the throat of the head trader 
of the Chippewyan and Athabasca Fur Company. “And 
they went down,” assured Bouvais. “He tried to spit 
them out, but couldn’t.” A few hours later David met the 
trader and observed that Bouvais had spoken the truth; 
at least there were two teeth missing, quite conspicuously. 
Hatchett was his name. He looked it; tall, thin, sinewy, 
with bird-like eyes that were shifting this way and that 
at all times, as though he were constantly on the alert for 
an ambush, or feared thieves. He was suspicious of 
David, coming in alone in this No Man’s Land with a pack 


in THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DQONE', 

on his back; a white man, too, which made him all the 
more suspicious. Perhaps David’s purpose was un¬ 
friendly to Hatchett. Few lone white men journeyed in 
that land without a sinister motive. It took some time 
for Father Roland’s letter to convince him that David was 
harmless. And then, all at once, he warmed up like a 
birch-bark taking fire, and shook David’s hand three 
times within five minutes, so hungry was he for a white 
man’s companionship—an honest white man’s, mind you, 
and not a scoundrelly competitor’s! He opened four cans 
of lobsters, left over from Christmas, for their first meal, 
and that night beat David at seven games of cribbage in 
a row. He wasn’t married, he said; didn’t even have an 
Indian woman. Hated women. If it wasn’t for breeding 
a future generation of trappers he would not care if they 
all died. No good. Positively no good. Always mak¬ 
ing trouble, more or less. That’s why, a long time ago, 
there was a fort at Chippewyan—sort of blockhouse that 
still stood there. Two men, of two different tribes, wanted 
same woman; quarrelled; fought; one got his blamed head 
busted; tribes took it up; raised hell for a time—all over 
that rag of a woman! Terrible creatures, women were. 
He emphasized his belief in biting snatches of words, 
as though afraid of wearing out his breath or his vocabu¬ 
lary. Maybe his teeth had something to do with it. 
Where the two were missing he carried the stem of his 
pipe, and when he talked the stem clicked, like a castanet. 

David had come at a propitious moment—a “most 
propichous moment,” Hatchett told him. He had done 
splendidly that winter. Fur had been plentiful and 
prime. He woidd send off more baled pelts of fox, mink, 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 173 


and marten than had laden the barges for twenty years. 
Then he would relieve the routine of his life at the post by 
a long journey, the reward for duty well performed. 

His fur barges were ready. All they were waiting for 
was the breaking up of the ice, when the barges would start 
up the Athabasca, which meant south; while he, in his big 
war canoe, would head up the Peace, which meant west . 
He was going as far as Hudson’s Hope, and this was 
within two hundred and fifty miles of where David wanted 
to go. He proved the fact by digging up an old voyageur’s 
map. David’s heart beat an excited tattoo. This was 
more than he had expected. Almost too good to be true. 

“You can work your way up there with me,” declared 
Hatchett, clicking his pipe stem. “Won’t cost you a 
cent. Not a dam’ cent. Work. Eat. Smoke. Fine 
trip. Just for company. A man needs company once 
in a while—decent company. Ice will go by middle of 
May. Two weeks. Meanwhile, have a devil of a time 
playing cribbage.” 

They did. Cribbage was Hatchett’s one passion, un¬ 
less another was—collecting splendid fur. “Indians 
rascally devils,” he would say, driving his cribbage pegs 
home. “Always trying to put off poor fur on me for 
good. Have to be watched. And I watch ’em. Dam’- 
if-I-don’t.” 

“How did you lose your teeth?” David asked him at 
last. They were playing late one night. 

Hatchett sat up in his chair as if stung. His eyes bulged 
as he looked at David, and his pipe stem clicked fiercely. 

“Frenchman,” he said. “Dirty pig of a Frenchman. 
No use for ’em. None. Told him women were no good 



174 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

—all women were bad. Said he had a woman. Said I 
didn’t care—all bad just the same. Said the woman he 
referred to was his wife. Told him he was a fool to have a 
wife. No warning—the pig! He biffed me. Knocked 
those two teeth out —down I I’ll get him some day. Flay 
him. Make dog whips of his dirty hide. All Frenchmen 
ought to die. Hope to God they will. Starve. Freeze.” 

In spite of himself David laughed. Hatchett took no 
offense, but the grimness of his long, sombre countenance 
remained unbroken. A day or two later he discovered 
Hatchett in the act of giving an old, white-haired, half-* 
breed cripple a bag of supplies. Hatchett shook himself* 
as if caught in an act of crime. 

“I’m going to kill that old Dog Rib soon as the ground’s 
soft enough to dig a grave,” he declared, shaking a fist; 
fiercely after the old Indian. “Beggar. A sneak. No 
good. Ought to die. Giving him just enough to keep 
him alive until the ground is soft.” 

After all, Hatchett’s face belied his heart. His tongue 
was like a cleaver. It ripped things generally—was ter¬ 
rible in its threatening, but harmless, and tremendously 
amusing to David. He liked Hatchett. His cadaverous 
countenance, never breaking into a smile, was the oddest 
mask he had ever seen a human being wear. He believed 
that if it once broke into a laugh it would not straighten 
back again without leaving a permanent crack. And yet 
he liked the man, and the days passed swiftly. 

It was the middle of May before they started up the 
Peace, three days after the fur barges had gone down the 
Athabasca. David had never seen anything like Hatch¬ 
ett’s big war canoe, roomy as a small ship, and light as a 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 175 


feather on the water. Four powerful Dog Ribs went with 
them, making six paddles in all. When it came to a 
question of Baree, Hatchett put down his foot with 
emphasis. “What! Make a dam’ passenger of a dog? 
Never. Let him follow ashore—or die.” 

This would undoubtedly have been Baree’s choice if 
he had had a voice in the matter. Day after day he 
followed the canoe, swimming streams and working his 
way through swamp and forest. It was no easy matter. 
In the deep, slow waters of the Lower Peace the canoe 
made thirty-five miles a day; twice it made forty. But 
Hatchett kept Baree well fed, and each night the dog slept 
at David’s feet in camp. On the sixth day they reached 
Fort Vermilion, and Hatchett announced himself like a 
king. 

After a week more of canoe travel they arrived at 
Peace River landing, two hundred miles farther west, and 
on the twentieth day came to Fort St. John, fifty miles 
from Hudson’s Hope. From here David saw his first of 
the mountains. He made out their snowy peaks clearly, 
seventy miles away, and with his finger on a certain spot 
on Hatchett’s map his heart thrilled. He was almost 
there! Each day the mountains grew nearer. From 
Hudson’s Hope he fancied that he could almost see the 
dark blankets of timber on their sides. Hatchett grunted. 
They were still forty miles away. And Mac Veigh, the 
trader at Hudson’s Hope, looked at David in a curious sort 
of way when David told him where he was going. 

“You’re the first white man to do it,” he said—an 
inflection of doubt in his voice. “It’s not bad going up 
the Finly as far as the Kwadocha. But from there . . 


176 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


He shook his head. He was short and thick, and his 
jaw hung heavy with disapproval. 

“You’re still seventy miles from the Stikine when you 
end up at the Kwadocha,” he went on, thumbing the map. 
“Who the devil will you get to take you on from there? 
Straight over the backbone of the Rockies. No trails. 
Not even a Post there. Too rough a country. Even the 
Indians won’t live in it.” He was silent for a moment, as 
if reflecting deeply. “Old Towaskook and his tribe are on 
the Kwadocha,” he added, as if seeing a glimmer of hope. 
“He might . But I doubt it. They’re a lazy lot of mom 
grels, Towaskook’s people, who carve things out of wood, 
to worship. Still, he might . I’ll send up a good man with 
you to influence him, and you’d better take along a couple 
hundred dollars in supplies as a further inducement.” 

The man was a half-breed. Three days later they left 
Hudson’s Hope, with Baree riding amidships. The moun¬ 
tains loomed up swiftly after this, and the second day they 
were among them. After that it was slow work fighting 
their way up against the current of the Finly. It was 
tremendous work. It seemed to David that half their 
time was spent amid the roar of rapids. Twenty-seven 
times within five days they made portages. Later on it 
took them two days to carry their canoe and supplies 
around a mountain. Fifteen days were spent in making 
eighty miles. Easier travel followed then. It was the 
twentieth of June when they made their last camp before 
reaching the Kwadocha. The sun was still up; but they 
were tired, utterly exhausted. David looked at his map 
and at the figures in the notebook he carried. He had 
come close to fifteen hundred miles since that day when he 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 177 


and Father Roland and Mukoki had set out for the 
Cochrane. Fifteen hundred miles! And he had less 
than a hundred more to go! Just over those mountains— 
somewhere beyond them. It looked easy. He would 
not be afraid to go alone, if old Towaskook refused to help 
him. Yes, alone. He would find his way, somehow, he 
and Baree. He had unbounded confidence in Baree. 
Together they could fight it out. Within a week or two 
they would find the Girl. 

And then . . . ? 

He looked at the picture a long time in the glow of the 
setting sun. 



CHAPTER XVI 


I T WAS the week of the Big Festival when David and 
his half-breed arrived at Towaskook’s village. To- 
waskook was the “farthest east” of the totem-wor¬ 
shippers, and each of his forty or fifty people reminded 
David of the devil chaser on the canvas of the Snow Fox’s 
tepee. They were dressed up, as he remarked to the half- 
breed, “like fiends.” On the day of David’s arrival 
Towaskook himself was disguised in a huge bear head from 
which protruded a pair of buffalo horns that had somehow 
drifted up there from the western prairies, and it was his 
special business to perform various antics about his totem 
pole for at least six hours between sunrise and sunset, 
chanting all the time most dolorous supplications to the 
squat monster who sat, grinning, at the top. It was “the 
day of good hunting,” and Towaskook and his people 
worked themselves into exhaustion by the ardour of their 
prayers that the game of the mountains might walk right 
up to their tepee doors to be killed, thus necessitating the 
smallest possible physical exertion in its capture. That 
night Towaskook visited David at his camp, a little up 
the river, to see what he could get out of the white 
man. He was monstrously fat—fat from laziness; 
and David wondered how he had managed to put in 
his hours of labour under the totem pole. David sat 
in silence, trying to make out something from their ge^ 
178 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 179 

lures, as his half-breed, Jacques, and the old chief 
tidked. 

Jacques repeated it all to him after Towaskook, sighing 
deeply, had risen from his squatting posture, and left them. 
It was a terrible journey over those mountains, Towaskook 
had said. He had been on the Stikine once. He had 
split with his tribe, and had started eastward with many 
followers, but half of them had died—died because they 
would not leave their precious totems behind—and so 
had been caught in a deep snow that came early. It was a 
tea-day journey over the mountains. You went up above 
the clouds—many times you had to go above the clouds. 
He would never make the journey again. There was one 
chance—just one. He had a young bear hunter, Kio, 
hi? face was still smooth. He had not won his spurs, so 
to speak, and he was anxious to perform a great feat, 
especially as he was in love with his medicine man's 
daughter Kwak-wa-pisew (the Butterfly). Kio might go, 
to prove his valour to the Butterfly. Towaskook had gone 
for him. Of course, on a mission of this kind, Kio would 
accept no pay. That would go to Towaskook. The two 
hundred dollars’ worth of supplies satisfied him. 

A little later Towaskook returned with Kio. He was 
exceedingly youthful, slim-built as a weazel, but with a 
deep-set and treacherous eye. He listened. He would 
go. He would go as far as the confluence of the Pitman 
and the Stikine, if Towaskook would assure him the Butter¬ 
fly. Towaskook, eyeing greedily the supplies which 
Jacques had laid out alluringly, nodded an agreement to 
that. “The next day,” Kio said, then, eager now for the 
adventure. “The next day they would start.” 


180 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


That night Jacques carefully made up the two shoulder 
packs which David and Kio were to carry, for thereafter 
their travel would be entirely afoot. David’s burden, 
with his rifle, was fifty pounds. Jacques saw them off, 
shouting a last warning for David to “keep a watch on 
that devil-eyed Kio.” 

Kio was not like his eyes. He turned out, very shortly, 
to be a communicative and rather likable young fellow. 
He was ignorant of the white man’s talk. But he was a 
master of gesticulation; and when, in climbing their first 
mountain, David discovered muscles in his legs and back 
that he had never known of before, Kio laughingly sym¬ 
pathized with him and assured him in vivid pantomime 
that he would soon get used to it. Their first night they 
camped almost at the summit of the mountain. Kio 
wanted to make the warmth of the valley beyond, but 
those new muscles in David’s legs and back declared other¬ 
wise. Strawberries were ripening in the deeper valleys, 
but up where they were it was cold. A bitter wind came 
off the snow on the peaks, and David could smell the pun¬ 
gent fog of the clouds. They were so high that the scrub 
twigs of their fire smouldered with scarcely sufficient heat 
to fry their bacon. David was oblivious of the discomfort. 
His blood ran warm in hope and anticipation. He was 
almost at the end of his journey. It had been a great 
fight, and he had won. There was no doubt in his mind 
now. After this he could face the world again. 

Day after day they made their way westward. It was 
tremendous, this journey over the backbone of the moun¬ 
tains. It gave one a different conception of men. They 
were like ants on these mountains, David thought—in* 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 181 

significant, crawling ants. Here was wfiere one might 
find a soul and a religion if he had never had one before. 
One’s littleness, at times, was almost frightening. It made 
one think, impressed upon one that life was not much 
more than an accident in this vast scale of creation, and 
that there was great necessity for a God. In Kio’s eyes, 
as he sometimes looked down into the valleys, there was 
this thing; the thought which perhaps he couldn’t analyze, 
the great truth which he couldn’t understand, but felt. 
It made a worshipper of him—a devout worshipper of the 
totem. And it occurred to David that perhaps the spirit 
of God was in that totem even as much as in finger-worn 
rosaries and the ivory crosses on women’s breasts. 

Early on the eleventh day they came to the confluence 
of the Pitman and the Stikine rivers, and a little later Kio 
turned back on his homeward journey, and David and 
Baree were alone. This aloneness fell upon them like a 
thing that had a pulse and was alive. They crossed the 
Divide and were in a great sunlit country of amazing 
beauty and grandeur, with wide valleys between the 
mountains. It was July. From up and down the valley, 
from the breaks between the peaks and from the little 
gullies cleft in shale and rock that crept up to the snow 
lines, came a soft and droning murmur. It was the music 
of running water. That music was always in the air, for 
the rivers, the creeks, and the tiny streams, gushing down 
from the snow that lay eternally up near the clouds, were 
never still. There were sweet perfumes as well as music 
in the air. The earth was bursting with green; the early 
flowers were turning the sunny slopes into coloured splashes 
of red and white and Durple—splashes of violets and for- 


182 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


get-me-nots, of wild asters and hyacinths. David looked 
upon it all, and his soul drank in its wonders. He made 
his camp, and he remained in it all that day, and the next. 
He was eager to go on, and yet in his eagerness he hesitated, 
and waited. It seemed to him that he must become ac¬ 
quainted with this empty world before venturing farther 
into it—alone; that it was necessary for him to understand 
it a little, and get his bearings. He could not lose himself. 
Jacques had assured him of that, and Kio had pantomimed 
it, pointing many times at the broad, shallow stream that 
ran ahead of him. All he had to do was to follow the 
river. In time, many w^eeks, of course, it would bring him 
to the white settlement on the ocean. Long before that he 
would strike Firepan Creek. Kio had never been so far; 
he had never been farther than this junction of the two 
streams, Tow r askook had informed Jacques. So it was not 
fear that held David. It was the aloneness. He was 
taking a long mental breath. And, meanwhile, he was 
repairing his boots, and doctoring Baree’s feet, bruised and 
sore by their travel over the shale of the mountain 
tops. 

He thought that he had experienced the depths of loneli¬ 
ness after leaving the Missioner. But here it was a much 
larger thing. This night, as he sat under the stars and a 
great white moon, with Baree at his feet, it engulfed him; 
not in a depressing way, but awesomely. It was not an 
unpleasant loneliness, and yet he felt that it had no limit, 
that it was immeasurable. It was as vast as the mountains 
that shut him in. Somewhere, miles to the east of him 
now, was Kio. That was all. He knew that he would 
never be able to describe it, this loneliness—or aloneness; 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 183 

one man, and a dog, with a world to themselves. After 
u time, as he looked up at the stars and listened to the 
droning sound of the waters in the valley, it began to 
thrill him with a new kind of intelligence. Here was 
peace as vast as space itself. It was not troubled by the 
struggling existence of men, and women, and it seemed to 
him that he must remain very still under the watchfulness 
of those billions of sentinels in the sky, with the white moon 
floating under them. The second night he made himself 
and Baree a small fire. The third morning he shouldered 
his pack and went on. 

Baree kept close at his master’s side, and the eyes of 
the two were constantly on the alert. They were in a 
splendid game country, and David watched for the first 
opportunity that would give Baree and himself fresh meat. 
The white sand bars and gravelly shores of the stream were 
covered with the tracks of the wild dwellers of the valley 
and the adjoining ranges, and Baree sniffed hungrily when¬ 
ever he came to the warm scent of the last night’s spoor. 
He was hungry. He had been hungry all the way over the 
mountains. Three times that day David saw a caribou at 
a distance. In the afternoon he saw a grizzly on a green 
slope. Toward evening he ran into luck. A band of 
sheep had come down from a mountain to drink, and he 
came upon them suddenly, the wind in his favour. He 
killed a young ram. For a full minute after firing the shot 
he stood in his tracks, scarcely breathing. The report of 
his rifle was like an explosion. It leaped from mountain 
to mountan, echoing, deepening, coming back to him in 
murmuring intonations, and dying out at last in a sighing 
gasp. It was a weird and disturbing sound. He fancied 


184 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


that it could be heard many miles away. That night the 
two feasted on fresh meat. 

It was their fifth day in the valley when they came to a 
break in the western wall of the range, and through this 
break flowed a stream that was very much like the Stikine, 
broad and shallow and ribboned with shifting bars of 
sand. David made up his mind that it must be the Fire¬ 
pan, and he could feel his pulse quicken as he started up it 
with Baree. He must be quite near to Tavish’s cabin, if 
it had not been destroyed. Even if it had been burned on 
account of the plague that had infested it, he would surely 
discover the charred ruins of it. It was three o’clock when 
he started up the creek, and he was—inwardly—much 
agitated. He grew more and more positive that he was 
close to the end of his adventure. He would soon come 
upon life—human life. And then? He tried to dispel 
the unsteadiness of his emotions, the swuftly growing dis¬ 
comfort of a great anxiety. The first, of course, would be 
Tavish’s cabin, or the ruins of it. He had taken it for 
granted that Tavish’s location would be here, near the 
confluence of the two streams. A hunter or prospector 
would naturally choose such a position. 

He travelled slowly, questing both sides of the stream, 
and listening. He expected at any moment to hear a 
sound, a new kind of sound. And he also scrutinized 
closely the clean, white bars of sand. There were foot¬ 
prints in them, of the wild things. Once his heart gave a 
sudden jump when he saw a bear track that looked very 
much like a moccasin track. It was a wonderful bear 
country. Their signs were everywhere along the stream, 
and their number and freshness made Baree restless. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 185 

David travelled until dark. He liad the desire to go on 
even then. He built a small fire instead, and cooked his 
supper. For a long time after that he sat in the moonlight 
smoking his pipe, and still listening. He tried not to think. 
The next day would settle his doubts. The Girl? What 
would he find? He went to sleep late and awoke with the 
summer dawn. 

The stream grew narrower and the country wilder as he 
progressed. It was noon when Baree stopped dead in his 
tracks, stiff-legged, the bristles of his spine erect, a low 
and ominous growl in his throat. He was standing over a 
patch of white sand no larger than a blanket. 

“What is it, boy?” asked David. 

He went to him casually, and stood for a moment at 
the edge of the sand without looking down, lighting his 
pipe. 

“What is it?” 

The next moment his heart seemed rising up into his 
throat. He had been expecting what his eyes looked upon 
now, and he had been watching for it, but he had not 
anticipated such a tremendous shock. The imprint of a 
moccasined foot in the sand! There was no doubt of it 
this time. A human foot had made it—one, two, three, 
four, five times—in crossing that patch of sand! He 
stood with the pipe in his mouth, staring down, apparently 
without power to move or breathe. It was a small foot¬ 
print. Like a boy’s. He noticed, then, with slowly 
shifting eyes, that Baree was bristling and growling over 
another track. A bear track, huge, deeply impressed in 
the sand. The beast’s great spoor crossed the outer edge 

the sand, following the direction of the moccasin tracks. 


186 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


It was thrillingly fresh, if Baree’s bristling spine and rum* 
bling voice meant anything. 

David’s eyes followed the direction of the two trails. 
A hundred yards upstream he could see where gravel and 
rock were replaced entirely by sand, quite a wide, unbroken 
sweep of it, across which those clawed and moccasined 
feet must have travelled if they had followed the creek. 
He was not interested in the bear, and Baree was not 
interested in the Indian boy; so when they came to the 
sand one followed the moccasin tracks and the other the 
claw tracks. They were not at any time more than ten 
feet apart. And then, all at once, they came together, 
and David saw that the bear had crossed the sand last 
and that his huge paws had obliterated a part of the 
moccasin trail. This did not strike him as unusually 
significant until he came to a point where the moccasins 
turned sharply and circled to the right. The bear fol¬ 
lowed. A little farther—and David’s heart gave a sudden 
thump! At first it might have been coincidence, a bit of 
chance. It was chance no longer. It was deliberate. 
The claws were on the trail of the moccasins. David 
halted and pocketed his pipe, on which he had not drawn 
a breath in several minutes. He looked at his rifle, making 
sure that it was ready for action. Baree was growling. 
His white fangs gleamed and lurid lights were in his eyes 
as he gazed ahead and sniffed. David shuddered. With¬ 
out doubt the claws had overtaken the moccasins by this 
time. 

It was a grizzly. He guessed so much by the size of the 
spoor. He followed it across a bar of gravel. Then they 
turned a twist in the creek and came to other sand. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 187 

Aery of amazement burst from David’s lips when he looked 
closely at the two trails again. 

The moocasins were now following the grizzly ! 

He stared, for a few moments disbelieving his eyes. 
Here, too, there was no room for doubt. The feet of the 
Indian boy had trodden in the tracks of the bear. The 
evidence was conclusive; the fact astonishing. Of course, 
it was barely possible . . . 

Whatever the thought might have been in David’s 
mind, it never reached a conclusion. He did not cry out 
at what he saw after that. He made no sound. Perhaps 
he did not even breathe. But it was there—under his 
eyes; inexplicable, amazing, not to be easily believed. A 
third time the order of the mysterious footprints in the 
sand was changed—and the grizzly was now following the 
boy, obliterating almost entirely the indentures in the 
sand of his small, moccasined feet. He wondered whether 
it was possible that his eyes had gone bad on him, or that 
his mind had slipped out of its normal groove and was 
tricking him with weirdly absurd hallucinations. So what 
happened in almost that same breath did not startle him 
as it might otherwise have done. It was for a brief mo¬ 
ment simply another assurance of his insanity; and if the 
mountains had suddenly turned over and balanced them¬ 
selves on their peaks their gymnastics would not have 
frozen him into a more speechless stupidity than did the 
Girl who rose before him just then, not twenty paces 
away. She had emerged like an apparition from behind a 
great boulder—a little older, a little taller, a bit wilder 
than she had seemed to him in the picture, but with that 
same glorious hair sweeping dbout her, and that same 


188 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


questioning look in her eyes as she stared at him. Her 
hands were in that same way at her side, too, as if she 
were on the point of running away from him. He tried to 
speak. He believed, afterward, that he even made an 
effort to hold out his arms. But he was powerless. And 
so they stood there, twenty paces apart, staring as if they 
had met from the ends of the earth. 

Something happened then to whip David’s reason back 
into its place. He heard a crunching—heavy, slow. 
From around the other end of the boulder came a huge bear. 
A monster. Ten feet from the girl. The first cry rushed 
out of his throat. It was a warning, and in the same 
instant he raised his rifle to his shoulder. The girl was 
quicker than he—like an arrow, a flash, a whirlwind of 
burnished tresses, as she flew to the side of the great beast. 
She stood with her back against it, her two hands clutching 
its tawny hair, her slim body quivering, her eyes flashing 
at David. He felt weak. He lowered his rifle and ad¬ 
vanced a few steps. 

“Who . . . what . . he managed to say; 

and stopped. He was powerless to go on. But she seemed 
to understand. Her body stiffened. 

“I am Marge O’Doone,” she said defiantly, “and this is 
my bear!” 


CHAPTER XVII 


S HE was splendid as she stood there, an exquisite 
human touch in the savageness of the world about 
her—and yet strangely wild as she faced David* 
protecting with her own quivering body the great beast 
behind her. To David, in the first immensity of his as¬ 
tonishment, she had seemed to be a woman; but now she 
looked to him like a child, a very young girl. Perhaps 
it was the way her hair fell in a tangled riot of curling 
tresses over her shoulders and breast; the slimness of her; 
the shortness of her skirt; the unfaltering clearness of the 
great, blue eyes that were staring at him; and, above all 
else, the manner in which she had spoken her name. The 
bear might have been nothing more than a rock to him 
now, against which she was leaning. He did not hear 
Baree’s low growling. He had travelled a long way to 
find her, and now that she stood there before him in flesh 
and blood he was not interested in much else. It was a 
rather difficult situation. He had known her so long, she 
had been with him so constantly, filling even his dreams, 
that it was difficult for him to find words in which to begin 
speech. When they did come they were most common¬ 
place; his voice was quiet, with an assured and protecting 
note in it. 

“My name is David Raine,” he said. “I have come a 
great distance to find you.” 


189 


190 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

It was a simple and unemotional statement of fact, 
with nothing that was alarming in it, and yet the girl 
shrank closer against her bear. The huge brute was 
standing without the movement of a muscle, his small 
reddish eyes fixed on David. 

“I won’t go back!” she said. “I’ll—fight!” 

Her voice was clear, direct, defiant. Her hands ap¬ 
peared from behind her, and her little fists were clenched. 
With a swift movement she tossed her hair back from about 
her face. Her eyes were blue, but dark as thunder clouds 
in their gathering fierceness. She was like a child, and 
yet a woman. A ferocious little person. Ready to fight. 
Ready to spring at him if he approached. Her eyes 
never left his face. 

“ I won’t go back! ” she repeated. “ I won’t! ” 

He was noticing other things about her. Her moo* 
casins were in tatters. Her short skirt was torn. Her 
shining hair was in tangles. As she swept it back from 
her face he saw under her eyes the darkness of exhaustion; 
in her cheeks a wanness,which he did not know just then 
was caused by hunger, and by her struggle to get away 
from something. On the back of one of her clenched hands 
was a deep, red scratch. The look in his face must have 
given the girl some inkling of the truth. She leaned a 
little forward, quickly and eagerly, and demanded: 

“Didn’t you come from the Nest? Didn’t they send 
you—after me?” 

She pointed down the narrow valley, her lips parted as 
she waited for his answer, her hair rioting over her breast 
again as she bent toward him. 

“ I’ve come fifteen hundred miles—from that direction,” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 191 

said David, swinging an arm toward the backward moun¬ 
tains. “I’ve never been in this country before. I don’t 
know where the Nest is, or what it is. And I’m ndc 
going to take you back to it unless you want to go. If 
some one is coming after you, and you’re bound to fight. 
I’ll help you. Will that bear bite?” 

He swung off his pack and put down his gun. For a 
moment the girl stared at him with widening eyes. The 
fear went out of them slowly. Her hand unclenched, and 
suddenly she turned to the big grizzly and clasped her 
bared arms about the shaggy monster’s neck. 

“Tara, Tara, it isn’t one of them!” she cried. “It 
isn’t one of them—and we thought it was! ” 

She whirled on David with a suddenness that took his 
bieath away. It was like the swift turning of a bird. 
He had never seen a movement so quick. 

“Who are you?” she flung at him, as if she had not 
already heard his name. “Why are you here? What 
business have you going up there—to the Nest?” 

“I don’t like that bear,” said David dubiously, as the 
grizzly made a slow movement toward him. 

“Tara won’t hurt you,” she said. “Not unless you put 
your hands on me, and I scream. I’ve had him ever since 
he was a baby and he has never hurt any one yet. But— 
he will! ” Her eyes glowed darkly again, and her voice 
had a strange, hard little note in it. “I’ve been . . . 

training him,” she added. “Tell me—why are you going 
to the Nest?” 

It was a point-blank, determined question, with still a 
hint of suspicion in it; and her eyes, as she asked it, were 
the clearest, steadiest, bluest eyes he had ever looked into. 


192 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


He was finding it hard to five up to what he had expected 
of himself. Many times he had thought of what he would 
say when he found this girl, if he ever did find her; but he 
had anticipated something a little more conventional, and 
had believed that it would be quite the easiest matter in 
the world to tell who he was, and why he had come, and to 
tell it all convincingly and understandably. He had not, 
in short, expected the sort of little person who stood there 
against her bear—a very difficult little person to approach 
easily and with assurance—half woman and half child, 
and beautifully wild. She was not disappointing. She 
was greatly appealing. When he surveyed her in a par¬ 
ticularizing way, as he did swiftly, there was an exquisite¬ 
ness about her that gave him pleasureable thrills. But it 
was all wild. Even her hair, an amazing glory of tangled 
curls, was wild in its disorder; she seemed palpitating with 
that wildness, like a fawn that had been run into a corner— 
no, not a fawn, but some beautiful creature that could and 
would fight desperately if need be. That was his impres¬ 
sion. He was undergoing a smashing of his conceptions 
of this girl as he had visioned her from the picture, and a 
readjustment of her as she existed for him now. And he 
was not disappointed. He had never seen anything quite 
like this Marge O’Doone and her bear. O’Doone 1 His 
mind had harked back quickly, at her mention of that 
name, to the woman in the coach of the Transcontinental, 
the woman who was seeking a man by the name of Michael 
O’Doone. Of course the woman was her mother. Her 
name, too, must have been O’Doone. 

Very slowly the girl detached herself from her bear# 
and came until she stood within three steps of David, 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 193 

“Tara won’t hurt you,” she assured him again, “unless 
I scream. He would tear you to pieces, then.” 

If she had betrayed a sudden fear at his first appearance, 
it was gone now. Her eyes^ were like dark rock-violets 
and again he thought them the bluest and most fearless 
eyes he had ever seen. She was less a child now, standing 
so close to him; her slimness made her appear taller than 
she was. David knew that she was going to question him, 
and before she could speak he asked: 

“Why are you afraid of some one coming after you from 
the Nest, as you call it?” 

“Because,” she replied with quiet fearlessness, “I am 
running away from it.” 

“Running away!” he gasped. “How long . . .” 

“Two days.” 

He understood now—her ragged moccasins, her frayed 
skirt, her tangled hair, the look of exhaustion about her. 
It came upon him all at once that she was standing un¬ 
steadily, swaying slightly like the slender stem of a flower 
stirred by a breath of air, and that he had not noticed 
these things because of the steadiness and clearness of her 
wonderful eyes. He was at her side in an instant. He 
forgot the bear. His hand seized hers—the one with the 
deep, red scratch on it—and drew her to a flat rock a few 
steps away. She followed him, keeping her eyes on him in 
a wondering sort of way. The grizzly’s reddish eyes were 
on David. A few yards away Baree was lying flat on his 
belly between two stones, his eyes on the bear. It was a 
strange scene and rather weirdly incongruous. David 
no longer sensed it. He still held the girl’s hand as he 
seated her on the rock, and he looked into her eyes. 


194 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


smiling confidently. She was, after all, his little chum—* 
the Girl who had been with him ever since that first night’s 
vision in Thoreau’s cabin, and who had helped him to win 
that great fight he had made; the girl who had cheered 
and inspired him during many months, and whom he had 
come fifteen hundred miles to see. He told her this. 
At first she possibly thought him a little mad. Her eyes 
betrayed that suspicion, for she uttered not a word to 
break in on his story; but after a little her lips parted, her 
breath came a little more quickly, a flush grew in her 
cheeks. It was a wonderful thing in her life, this story, 
no matter if the man was a bit mad, or even an impostor. 
He at least was very real in this moment, and he had told 
the story without excitement, and with an immeasurable 
degree of confidence and quiet tenderness—as though he 
had been simplifying the strange tale for the ears of a 
child, which in fact he had been endeavouring to do' for 
with the flush in her cheeks, her parted lips, and her soft¬ 
ening eyes, she looked to him more like a child now than 
ever. His manner gave her great faith. But of course she 
was, deep in her trembling soul, quite incredulous that he 
should have done all these things for her —incredulous 
until he ended his story with that day’s travel up the 
valley, and then, for the first time, showed to her—as a 
proof of all he had said—the picture. 

She gave a little cry then. It was the first sound that 
had broken past her lips, and she clutched the picture in 
her hands and stared at it; and David, looking down, could 
see nothing but that shining disarray of curls, a rich and 
wonderful brown in the sunlight, clustering about her 
shoulders and falling thickly to her waist. He thought it 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 195 


Indescribably beautiful, in spite of the manner in which 
the curls and tresses had tangled themselves. They hid 
her face as she bent over the picture. He did not speak. 
He waited, knowing that in a moment or two all that he had 
guessed at would be clear, and that when the girl looked 
up she would tell him about the picture, and why she hap¬ 
pened to be here, and not with the woman of the coach, 
who must have been her mother. 

When at last she did look up from the picture her eyes 
were big and staring and filled with a mysterious ques¬ 
tioning. 

David, feeling quite sure of himself, said: 

“How did it happen that you were away up here, and not 
with your mother that night when I met her oa the train?’ 5 

“She wasn’t my mother,” replied the girl, looking at 
him still in that strange way. “My mother is dead.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


TER that quietly spoken fact that her mother was 



dead, David waited for Marge O’Doone to make 


some further explanation. He had so firmly con¬ 
vinced himself that the picture he had carried was the key 
to all that he wanted to know—first from Tavish, if he had 
lived, and now from the girl—that it took him a moment 
or two to understand what he saw in his companion’s 
face. He realized then that his possession of the picture 
and the manner in which it had come into his keeping 
were matters of great perplexity to her, and that the 
woman whom he had met in the Transcontinental held 
no significance for her at all, although he had told her with 
rather marked emphasis that this woman—whom he had 
thought was her mother—had been searching for a man 
who bore her own name, O’Doone. The girl was plainly 
expecting him to say something, and he reiterated this 
fact—that the woman in the coach was very anxious 
to find a man whose name was O’Doone, and that it was 
quite reasonable to suppose that her name was O’Doone, 
especially as she had with her this picture of a girl 
bearing that name. It seemed to him a powerful and 
utterly convincing argument. It was a combination 
of facts difficult to get away from without certain con¬ 
clusions, but this girl who was so near to him that he could 
almost feel her breath did not appear fully to comprehend 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 197 


their significance. She was looking at him with wide-open, 
wondering eyes, and when he had finished she said again: 

“My mother is dead. And my father is dead, too. 
And my aunt is dead—up at the Nest. There isn’t any one 
left but my uncle Hauck, and he is a brute. And Brokaw. 
He is a bigger brute. It was he who made me let him take 
this picture—two years ago. I have been training Tara to 
kill—to kill any one that touches me, when I scream.” 

It was wonderful to watch her eyes darken, to see her 
pupils grow big and luminous. She did not look at the 
picture clutched in her hands, but straight at him. 

“He caught me there, near the creek. He frightened 
me. He made me let him take it. He wanted me to take 
off my . . .” 

A flood of wild blood rushed into her face. In her heart 
was a fury. 

“I wouldn’t be afraid now—not of him alone,” she cried. 
“I would scream—and fight, and Tara would tear him 
into pieces. Oh, Tara knows how to do it —now / I have 
trained him.” 

“He compelled you to let him take the picture,” urged 
David gently. “And then . . .” 

“I saw one of the pictures afterward. My aunt had it. 
I wanted to destroy it, because I hated it, and I hated 
him. But she said it was necessary for her to keep it. 
She was sick then. I loved her. She would put her arms 
around me every day. She used to kiss me, nights, when 
I went to bed. But we were afraid of Hauck—I don’t 
call him ‘uncle.’ She was afraid of him. Once I jumped 
at him and scratched his face when he swore at her, and he 
pulled my hair. Ugh , I can feel it now! After that she 


198 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


used to cry, and she always put her arms around me 
closer than ever. She died that way, holding my bead 
down to her, and trying to say something. But I couldn’t 
understand. I was crying. That was six months ago. 
Since then I’ve been training Tara—to kill.” 

“And why have you trained Tara, little girl?” 

David took her hand. It lay warm and unresisting in 
his, a firm, very little hand. He could feel a slight shudder 
pass through her. 

“I heard—something,” she said. “The Nest is a 
terrible place. Hauck is terrible. Brokaw is terrible. 
And Hauck sent away somewhere up there”—she pointed 
northward—“for Brokaw. He said—I belonged to Bro¬ 
kaw. What did he mean?” 

She turned so that she could look straight into David’s 
eyes. She was hard to answer. If she had been a 
woman . . . 

She saw the slow, gathering tenseness in David’s face as 
he looked for a moment away from her bewildering eyes—* 
the hardening muscles of his jaws; and her own hand 
tightened as it lay in his. 

“What did Hauck mean?” she persisted. “Why do I 
belong to Brokaw—that great, red brute?” 

The hand he had been holding he took between both his 
palms in a gentle, comforting way. His voice was gentle, 
too, but the hard lines did not leave his face. 

“How old are you, Marge?” he asked. 

“Seventeen,” she said. 

“And I am—thirty-eight.” He turned to smile at her. 
**See . . .” He raised a hand and took off his hat* 

*My hair is getting gray!” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 199 

She looked up swiftly, and then, so suddenly that it 
took his breath away, her fingers were running back 
through his thick blond hair. 

“A little,” she said. “But you are not old.” 

She dropped her hand. Her whole movement had been 
innocent as a child’s. 

“ And yet I am quite old,” he assured her. “ Is this man 
Brokaw at the Nest, Marge?” 

She nodded. 

“He has been there a month. He came after Hauck 
sent for him, and went away again. Then he came back.” 

“And you are now running away from him?” 

“From all of them,” she said. “If it were just Brokaw 
I wouldn’t be afraid. I would let him catch me, and 
scream. Tara would kill him for me. But it’s Hauck, 
too. And the others. They are worse since Nisikoos 
died. That is what I called her—Nisikoos—my aunt, 
They are all terrible, and they all frighten me, especially 
since they began to build a great cage for Tara. Why 
should they build a cage for Tara, out of small trees? * 
Why do they want to shut him up? None of them wall 
tell me. Hauck says it is for another bear that Brokaw is 
bringing down from the Yukon. But I know they are 
lying. It is for Tara.” Suddenly her fingers clutched 
tightly at his hand, and for the first time he saw under her 
long, shimmering lashes the darkening fire of a real terror. 
“Why do I belong to Brokaw?” she asked again, a little 
tremble in her voice. “Why did Hauck say that? Can— 
can a man—buy a girl?” 

The nails of her slender fingers were pricking his flesh, 
David did not feel their hurt. 


200 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“What do you mean?” he asked, trying to keep his 
voice steady. “Did that man—Ilauck—sell you?” 

He looked away from her as he asked the question. He 
was afraid, just then, that something was in his face which 
he did not want her to see. He began to understand; at 
least he was beginning to picture a very horrible possi¬ 
bility. 

“I—don’t—know,” he heard her say, close to his 
shoulder. “It was night before last I heard them quar¬ 
relling, and I crept close to a door that was a little open, 
and looked in. Brokaw had given my uncle a bag of gold 9 
a little sack, like the miners use, and I heard him swear at 
my uncle, and say: ‘That’s more than she is worth but 
I’ll give in. Now she’s mine!’ I don’t know why it 
frightened me so. It wasn’t Brokaw. I guess it was the 
terrible look in that man’s face—my uncle’s. Tara and I 
ran away that night. Why do you suppose they want to 
put Tara in a cage? Do you think Brokaw was buying 
Tara to put into that cage? He said ‘she,’ not ‘he’.” 

He looked at her again. Her eyes were not so fearless 

now. 

“ Was he buying Tara, or me?” she insisted. 

“WQiy do you have that thought—that he was buying 
you ?” David asked. “Has anything—happened?” 

A second time a fury of blood leapt into her face and her 
lashes shadowed a pair of blazing stars. 

“He—that red brute—caught me in the dark two weeks 
ago, and held me there—and kissed me!” She fairly 
panted at him, springing to her feet and standing before 
him. “I would have screamed, but it was in the house, 
and Tara couldn’t have come to me. I scratched him. and 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 201 

fought, but he bent my head back until it hurt. He tried 
it again the day he gave my uncle the gold, but I struck 
him with a stick, and got away. Oh, I hate him! And he 
knows it. And my uncle cursed me for striking him! 
And that’s why . . . I’m running away.” 

“I understand,” said David, rising and smiling at her 
confidently, while in his veins his blood was running like 
little streams of fire. “Don’t you believe, now, all that 
I’ve told you about the picture? How it tried so hard to 
talk to me, and tell me to hurry? It got me here just 
about in time, didn’t it? It’ll be a great joke on Brokaw, 
little girl. And your uncle Hauck. A great joke, eh?” 
He laughed. He felt like laughing, even as his blood 
pounded through him at fever heat. “You’re a little 
brick, Marge—you and your bear!” 

It was the first time he had thought of the bear since 
Marge had detached herself from the big beast to come to 
him, and as he looked in its direction he gave a startled 
exclamation. 

Baree and the grizzly had been measuring each other 
for some time. To Baree this was the most amazing 
experience in all his life, and flattened out between the two 
rocks he was at a loss to comprehend why his master did 
not either run or shoot. He wanted to jump out, if his 
master showed fight, and leap straight at that ugly mon¬ 
ster, or he wanted to run away as fast as his legs would 
carry him. He was shivering in indecision, waiting a 
signal from David to do either one or the other. And 
Tara was now moving slowly toward the dog! His huge 
head was hung low, swinging slightly from side to side in a 
most terrifying way; his great jaws were agape, and th© 


202 THE COURAGE GF MARGE O’DOONE 


nearer he came to Baree the smaller the dog seemed to 
grow between the rocks. At David’s sudden cry the girl 
had turned, and he was amazed to hear her laughter, clear 
and sweet as a bell. It was funny, that picture of the dog 
and the bear, if one was in the mood to see the humour of 
it! 

“Tara won’t hurt him,” she hurried to say, seeing 
David’s uneasiness. “He loves dogs. He wants to 
play with . . . what is his name? ” 

“Baree. And mine is David.” 

“Baree—David. See!” 

Like a bird she had left his side and in an instant, it 
seemed, was astride the big grizzly, digging her fingers into 
Tara’s thick coat—smiling back at him, her radiant hair 
about her like a cloud, filled with marvellous red-and-gold 
fires in the sun. 

“Come,” she said, holding out a hand to David. “I 
want Tara to know you are our friend. Because”—the 
darkness came into her eyes again—“ I have been training 
him, and I want him to know he must not hurt you .” 

David went to them, little fancying the acquaintance 
he was about to make, until Marge slipped off her bear and 
put her two arms unhesitatingly about his shoulders, and 
drew him down with her close in front of Tara’s big head 
and round, emotionless eyes. For a thrilling moment or 
two she pressed her face close to his, looking all the time 
straight at Tara, and talking to him steadily. David did 
not sense what she was saying, except that in a general 
way she was telling Tara that he must never hurt this man, 
no matter what happened. He felt the warm crush of her 
iair on his neck and face. It billowed on his breast for a 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 203 


moment. The girl’s hand touched his cheek, warm and 
caressing. He made no movement of his own, except to 
rise rigidly when she unclasped her arms from about his 
shoulders. 

“There; he won’t hurt you now!” she exclaimed in 
triumph. 

Her cheeks were flaming, but not with embarrassment. 
Her eyes were as clear as the violets he had crushed under 
his feet in the mountain valleys. He looked at her as she 
stood before him, so much like a child, and yet enough 
of a woman to make his own cheeks burn. And then he 
saw a sudden changing expression come into her face* 
There was something pathetic about it, something that 
made him see again what he had forgotten—her exhaustion, 
the evidences of her struggle. She was looking at his 
pack. 

“We haven’t had anything to eat since we ran away, 1 ' 
she said simply. “I’m hungry.” 

He had heard children say “I’m hungry” in that same 
voice, with the same hopeful and entreating insistence in it; 
he had spoken those words himself a thousand times, to his 
mother, in just that same way, it seemed to him; and as 
she stood there, looking at his pack, he was filled with a 
very strong desire to crumple her close in his arms—not 
as a woman, but as a child. And this desire held him so 
still for a moment that she thought he was waiting for her 
to explain. 

“I fastened our bundle on Tara’s back and we lost it 
fn the night coming up over the mountain, she said. 
“It was so steep that in places I had to catch hold of 
Tara and let him drag me up." 


£04 THE COURAGE OF MARGE OT>OONE 

In another moment he was at his pack, opening it, and 
tossing things to right and left on the white sand, and the 
girl watched him, her eyes very bright with anticipation. 

“Coffee, bacon, bannock, and potatoes,”he said, making 
a quick inventory of his small stock of provisions. 

“Potatoes!” cried the girl. 

“Yes—dehydrated. See? It looks like rice. One 
pound of this equals fourteen pounds of potatoes. And 
you can't tell the difference when it’s cooked right. Now 
lor a fire!” 

She was darting this way and that, collecting small 
dry sticks in the sand before he was on his feet. He 
could not resist standing for a moment and watching her. 
Her movements, even in her quick and eager quest of fuel, 
were the most graceful he had ever seen in a human being. 
And yet she was tired! She was hungry! And he be¬ 
lieved that her feet, concealed in those rock-torn moccasins, 
were bruised and sore. He went down to the stream for 
water, and in the few moments that he was gone his mind 
worked swiftly. He believed that he understood, perhaps 
even more than the girl herself. There was something 
about her that was so sweetly childish—in spite of her age 
and her height and her amazing prettiness that was not all 
a child’s prettiness—that he could not feel that she had 
realized fully the peril from which she was fleeing when he 
found her. He had guessed that her dread was only partly 
for herself and that the other part was for Tara, her bear. 
She had asked him in a sort of plaintive anxiety and with 
rather more of wonderment and perplexity in her eyes 
than fear, whether she belonged to Brokaw, and what it all 
meant, and whether a man could buy a girl. It was not a 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 205 


mystery to him that the “red brute” she had told him 
about should want her. His puzzlement was that such a 
thing could happen, if he had guessed right, among 
men. Buy her? Of course down there in the big cities 
such a thing had happened hundreds and thousands of 
times—were happening every day—but he could not easily 
picture it happening up here, where men lived because of 
their strength. There must surely be other men at the 
Nest than the two hated and feared by the girl—Hauck 
her uncle, and Brokaw% the “red brute.” 

She had built a little pile of sticks and dry moss ready 
for the touch of a match when he returned. Tara had 
stretched himself out lazily in the sun and Baree was still 
between the two rocks, eyeing him watchfully. Before 
David lighted the fire he spread his one blanket out on the 
sand and made the Girl sit down. She was close to him, 
and her eyes did not leave his face for an instant When¬ 
ever he looked up she was gazing straight at him, and when 
he went down to the creek for another pail of water he felt 
that her eyes were still on him. When he turned to come 
back, with fifty paces between them, she smiled at him and 
he waved his hand at her. He asked her a great many 
questions while he prepared their dinner. The Nest, 
he learned, was a free-trading place, and Hauck was its 
proprietor. He was surprised when he learned that he 
was not on Firepan Creek after all. The Firepan was 
over the range, and there were a good many Indians to 
the north and west of it. Miners came down frequently 
from the Taku River country and the edge of the Yukon, 
she said. At least she thought they were miners, for that 
is what Hauck used to tell Nisikoos, her aunt. They came 


m THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

after whisky. Always whisky. And the Indians came 
for liquor, too. It was the chief article that Hauck, her 
uncle, traded in. He brought it from the coast, in the 
winter time—many sledge loads of it; and some of those 
“ min ers ” who came down from the north carried away 
much of it. If it was summer they would take it away on 
pack horses. What would they do with so much liquor, 
she wondered? A little of it made such a beast of Hauck, 
and a beast of Brokaw, and it drove the Indians wild. 
Hauck would no longer allow the Indians to drink it at 
the Nest. They had to take it away with them—into 
the mountains. Just now there was quite a number of the 
“miners” down from the north, ten or twelve of them. 
She had not been afraid when Nisikoos, her aunt, was alive. 
But now there was no other woman at the Nest, except an 
old Indian woman who did Hauck’s cooking. Hauck 
wanted no one there. And she was afraid of those men. 
They all feared Hauck, and she knew that Hauck was 
afraid of Brokaw. She didn’t know why, but he was. 
And she was afraid of them all, and hated them all. 
She had been quite happy when Nisikoos was alive. 
Nisikoos had taught her to read out of books, had taught 
her things ever since she could remember. She could 
write almost as well as Nisikoos. She said this a bit 
proudly. But since her aunt had gone, things were 
terribly changed. Especially the men. They had made 
her more afraid, every day. 

“None of them is like you,” she said with startling 
frankness, her eyes shining at him. “I would love to be 
with you!” 

He turned, then, to look at Tara dozing in the sun. 


CHAPTER XIX 



^HEY ate, facing each other, on a clean, flat stone 


that was like a table. There was no hesitation on 


the girl’s part, no false pride in the concealment of 
her hunger. To David it was a joy to watch her eat, and 
to catch the changing expressions in her eyes, and the 
little half-smiles that took the place of words as he helped 
her diligently to bacon and bannock and potatoes and 
coffee. The bright glow went only once out of her eyes, 
and that was when she looked at Tara and Baree. 

“Tara has been eating roots all day,” she said, “But 
what will he eat?” and she nodded at the dog. 

“He had a whistler for breakfast,” David assured her. 
“ Fat as butter. He wouldn’t eat now anyway. He is too 
much interested in the bear.” She had finished, with a 
little sigh of content, when he asked: “What do you 
mean when you say that you have trained Tara to kill? 
Why have you trained him?” 

“I began the day after Brokaw did that—held me there 
in his arms, with my head bent back. Ugh ! he was 
terrible, with his face so close to mine!” She shuddered. 
“Afterward I washed my face, and scrubbed it hard, 
but I could still feel it. I can feel it now! ” Her eyes were 
darkening again, as the sun darkens when a thunder cloud 
passes under it. “I wanted to make Tara understand 
what he must do after that, so I stole some of Brokaw’s 


208 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

clothes and carried them up to a little plain on the side of 
the mountain. I stuffed them with grass, and made a 
. . . what do you call it? In Indian it is issena - 

koosewin . . 

“A dummy,” he said. 

She nodded. 

“Yes, that is it. Then I would go with it a little distance 
from Tara, and would begin to struggle with it, and 
scream. The third time, when Tara saw me lying under 
it, kicking and screaming, he gave it a blow with his paw 
that ripped it clean in two! And after that . . 

Iler eyes were glorious in their wild triumph. 

“He would tear it into bits,” she cried breathlessly. 
“It would take me a whole day to mend it again, and at 
last I had to steal more clothes. I took Hauck’s this ti ne. 
And soon they were gone, too. That is just what Tara 
will do to a man—when I fight and scream!” 

“And a little while ago you were ready to jump at me, 
and fight and scream!” he reminded her, smiling across 
their rock table. 

“Not after you spoke to me,” she said, so quickly that 
the words seemed to spring straight from her heart. “I 
wasn’t afraid then. I was—glad. No, I wouldn’t scream 
—not even if you held me like Brokaw did!” 

He felt the warm blood rising under his skin again. It 
was impossible to keep it down. And he was ashamed of 
it—ashamed of the thought that for an instant was in his 
mind. The soul of the wild, little mountain creature was 
in her eyes. Her lips made no concealment of its thoughts 
or its emotions, pure as the blue skies above them and as 
ungovemed by conventionality as the winds that shifted 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 209 

up and down the valleys. She was a new sort of being to 
him, a child-woman, a little wonder-nymph that had grown 
up with the flowers. And yet not so little after all. He 
had noticed that the top of her shining head came con¬ 
siderably above his chin. 

“Then you will not be afraid to go back to the Nest— 
with me?” he asked. 

“No,” she said with a direct and amazing confidence. 
“But I’d rather run away with you.” Then she added 
quickly, before he could speak: “Didn’t you say you came 
all that way—hundreds of miles—to find me? Then why 
must we go back?” 

He explained to her as clearly as he could, and as reason 
seemed tc point out to him. It was impossible, he assured 
her, that Brokaw or Hauck or any other man could harm 
her now that he was here to take care of her and straighten 
matters out. He was as frank with her as she had been 
with him. Her eyes widened when he told her that he did 
not believe Hauck was her uncle, and that he was certain 
the woman whom he had met that night on the Trans¬ 
continental, and who was searching for an O’Doone, had 
some deep interest in her. He must discover, if possible, 
how the picture had got to her, and who she was, and he 
could do this only by going to the Nest and learning the 
truth straight from Hauck. Then they would go on to 
the coast, which would be an easy journey. He told her 
that Hauck and Brokaw would not dare to cause them 
trouble, as they were carrying on a business of which the 
provincial police would make short work, if they knew of 
it. They held the whip hand, he and Marge. Her eyes 
shone with increasing faith as he talked. 


210 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


She had leaned a little over the narrow rock between 
them so that her thick curls fell in shining clusters under 
his eyes, and suddenly she reached out her arms through 
them and her two hands touched his face. 

“And you will take me away? You promise?” 

“My dear child, that is just what I came for,” he said, 
feigning to be surprised at her questions. “Fifteen hun¬ 
dred miles for just that. Now don’t you believe all that 
I’ve told you about the picture?” 

“Yes,” she nodded. 

She had drawn back, and was looking at him so steadily 
and with such wondering depths in her eyes that he found 
himself compelled for an instant to turn his own gaze carte* 
lessly away. 

“And you used to talk to it,” she said, “and it seemrsd 
alivef ” 

“Very much alive. Marge.” 

“And you dreamed about me?” 

He had said that, and he felt again that warm rise of 
blood. He felt himself in a difficult place. If she had 
been older, or even younger . . . 

“Yes,” he said truthfully. 

He feared one other question was quite uncomfortably 
near. But it didn’t come. The girl rose suddenly to her 
feet, flung back her hair, and ran to Tara, dozing in the 
sun. What she was saying to the beast, with her arms 
about his shaggy neck, David could only guess. He found 
himself laughing again, quietly of course, with his back to 
her, as he picked up their dinner things. He had not 
anticipated such an experience as this. It rather unsettled 
him. It was amusing—and had a decided thrill to it 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 211 


Undoubtedly Hauck and Brokaw were rough men; from 
what she had told him he was convinced they were lawless 
men, engaged in a very wide “underground” trade in 
whisky. But he believed that he would not find them as 
bad as he had pictured them at first, even though the Nest 
was a horrible place for the girl. Her running away was 
the most natural thing in the world—for her. She was an 
amazingly spontaneous little creature, full of courage and 
a fierce determination to fight some one, but probably to¬ 
day or to-morrow she would have been forced to turn 
homeward, quite exhausted with her adventure, and 
nibbling roots along with Tara to keep herself alive. The 
thought of her hunger and of the dire necessity in which he 
had found her, drove the smile from his lips. He was fin¬ 
ishing his pack when she left the bear and came to him. 

“If we are to get over the mountain before dark we must 
hurry,” she said. “See—it is a big mountain!” 

She pointed to a barren break in the northward range, 
close up to the snow-covered peaks. 

“And it’s cold up there when night comes,” she added. 

“Can you make it?” David asked. “Aren’t you tired? 
Your feet sore? We can wait here until morning . . 

“I can climb it,” she cried, with an excitement which he 
had not seen in her before. “I can climb it—and travel 
all night—to tell Brokaw and Hauck I don’t belong to 
them any more, and that we’re going away! Brokaw 
will be like a mad beast, and before we go I’ll scratch his 
eyes out!” 

“Good Lord!” gasped David under his breath. 

“And if Hauck swears at me I’ll scratch his out!” she 
declared, trembling in the glorious anticipation of her 



212 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


vengeance. “I’ll ... I’ll scratch his out, anyway, 
for what he did to Nisikoos! ” 

David stared at her. She was looking away from him, 
her eyes on the break between the mountains, and he 
noticed how tense her slender body had become and how 
tightly her hands were clenched. 

“They won’t dare to touch me or swear at me when you 
are there,” she added, with sublime faith. 

She turned in time to catch the look in his face. Swiftly 
the excitement faded out of her own. She touched his 
arm, hesitatingly. 

“Wouldn’t . . . you want me ... to scratch 

out their eyes?” she asked. 

He shook his head. 

“It wouldn’t do,” he said. “We must be very careful. 
We mustn’t let them know you ran away. We must tell 
them you climbed up the mountain, and got lost.” 

“I never get lost,” she protested. 

“But we must tell them that just the same,” he insisted. 
“Will you?” 

She nodded emphatically. 

“And now, before we start, tell me why they haven’t 
followed you?” 

“Because I came over the mountain,” she replied, 
pointing again toward the break. “It’s all rock, and 
Tara left no marks. They wouldn’t think we’d climb over 
the range. They’ve been looking for us in the other valley 
if they have hunted for us at all. We were going to climb 
over that range, too.” She turned so that she was 
pointing to the south. 

“And then?” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 2 IS 

“There are people over there. I’ve heard Hauck talk 
about them.” 

“Did you ever hear him speak of a man by the name of 
Tavish? ” he asked, watching her closely. 

“Tavish?” She pursed her lips into a red “O,” and 
little lines gathered thoughtfully between her eyes. 
“Tavish? No-o-o, I never have.” 

“He lived at one time on Firepan Creek. Had small¬ 
pox,” said David. 

“That is terrible,” the girl shuddered. “The Indians 
die of it up here. Hauck says that my father and mother 
died of small-pox, before I could remember. It is all 
like a dream. I can see a woman’s face sometimes, and I 
can remember a cabin, and snow, and lots of dogs. Are 
you ready to go?” 

He shouldered his pack, and as he arranged the straps 
Marge ran to Tara. At her command the big beast rose 
slowly and stood before her, swinging his head from side to 
side, his jaws agape. David called to Baree and the dog 
came to him like a streak and stood against his leg, snarling 
fiercely. 

“Tut, tut,” admonished David, softly, laying a hand on 
Baree’s head. “We’re all friends, boy. Look here!” 

He walked straight over to the grizzly and tried to 
induce Baree to follow him. Baree came half way and 
then sat himself on his haunches and refused to budge an¬ 
other inch, an expression so doleful in his face that it drew 
from the girl’s lips a peal of laughter in which David found 
it impossible not to join. It was delightfully infectious; 
he was laughing more with her than at Baree. In the 
same breath his merriment was cut short by an unexpected 


214 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


and most amazing discovery. Tara, after all, had his 
usefulness. His mistress had vaulted astride of him, and 
was nudging him with her heels, leaning forward so that 
with one hand she was pulling at his left ear. The bear 
turned slowly, his finger-long claws clicking on the stones, 
and when his head was in the right direction Marge re¬ 
leased his ear and spoke sharply, beating a tattoo with her 
heels at the same time. 

“Neah, Tara, Neah /” she cried. 

After a moment’s hesitation, in which the grizzly seemed 
to be getting his bearings, Tara struck out straight for the 
break between the mountains, with his burden. The girl 
turned and waved a beckoning hand at David. 

“Pao 1 you must hurry!” she called to him, laughing at 
the astonishment in his face. 

He had started to fill his pipe, but for the next few min¬ 
utes he forgot that the pipe was in his hand. His eyes 
did not leave the huge beast, ambling along a dozen paces 
ahead of him, or the slip of a girl who rode him. He had 
caught a glimpse of Baree, and the dog’s eyes seemed to be 
bulging. He half believed that his own mouth was open 
when the girl called to him. What had happened was 
most startlingly unexpected, and what he stared at now was 
a wondrous sight! Tara travelled with the rolling, slouch¬ 
ing gait typical of the wide-quartered grizzly, and the girl 
was a sinuous part of him—by all odds the most wonder¬ 
ful thing in the world to David at this moment. Her hail 
streamed down her back in a cascade of sunlit glory. She 
flung back her head, and he thought of a wonderful 
golden-bronze flower. He heard her laugh, and cry out 
to Tara, and when the grizzly climbed up a bit of steep 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 215 


slide she leaned forward and became a part of the bear's 
back, her curls shimmering in the thick ruff of Tara’s 
neck. As he toiled upward in their wake, he caught a 
glimpse of her looking back at him from the top of the 
slide, her eyes shining and her lips smiling at him. She 
reminded him of something he had read about Leucosia, 
his favorite of the “Three Sirens,” only in this instance it 
Was a siren of the mountains and not of the sea that was 
leading him on to an early doom— if he had to keep up with 
that bear! His breath came more quickly. In ten min¬ 
utes he was gasping for wind, and in despair he slackened 
his pace as the bear and his rider disappeared over the 
crest of the first slope. She was waving at him then, 
fully two hundred yards up that infernal hill, and he was 
sure that she was laughing. He had almost reached the 
top w r hen he saw her sitting in the shade of a rock, watch¬ 
ing him as he toiled upward. There was a mischievous 
seriousness in the blue of her eyes when he reached her side. 

“I’m sorry, Sakewawin ,” she said, lowering her eyes 
until they were hidden under the silken sheen of her long 
lashes, “I couldn’t make Tara go slowly. He is hungry, 
and he knows that he is going home.” 

“And I thought you had sore feet,” he managed to say. 

“I don’t ride him going down a mountain,” she explained, 
thrusting out her ragged little feet. “ I can’t hang on, and 
I slip over his head. You must walk ahead of Tara. That 
will hold him back.” 

He tried this experiment when they continued their 
ascent, and Tara followed so uncomfortably close that at 
times David could feel his warm breath against his hand. 
When they reached the second slope the girl walked beside 


216 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


him. For a half mile it was not a bad climb and there 
was soft grass underfoot. After that came the rock and 
shale, and the air grew steadily colder. They had started 
at one o’clock and it was five when they reached the first 
snow. It was six when they stood at the summit. Under 
them lay the valley of the Firepan, a broad, sun-filled 
sweep of scattered timber and green plain, and the girl 
pointed into it, north and west. 

“Off there is the Nest,” she said. “We could almost see 
it if it weren’t for that big, red mountain.” 

She was very tired, though she had ridden Tara at least 
two thirds of the distance up the mountains. In her eyes 
was the mistiness of exhaustion, and as a chill wind swept 
about them she leaned against David, and he could feel 
that her endurance was nearly gone. As they had come up 
to the snow line he had made her put on the light woollen 
shirt he carried in his pack; and the big handkerchief, in 
which he had so long wrapped the picture, he had fastened 
scarf-like about her head, so she was not cold. But she 
looked pathetically childlike and out of place, standing 
here beside him at the very top of the world, with the 
valley so far down that the clumps of timber in it were 
like painted splashes. It was a half mile down to the 
first bit of timber—a small round patch of it in a narrow 
dip—and he pointed to it encouragingly. 

“We’ll camp there and have supper. I believe it is 
far enough down for a fire. And if it is impossible for you 
to ride Tara—I’m going to carry you!” 

“You can’t, Sakewawin” she sighed, letting her head 
touch his arm for a moment. “It is more difficult to 
carry a load down a mountain than up. I can walk.” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 217 


Before he could stop her she had begun to descend. 
They went down quickly—three times as quickly as they 
had climbed the other side—and when, half an hour later, 
they reached the timber in the dip, he felt as if his back were 
broken. The girl had persistently kept ahead of him, and 
with a little cry of triumph she dropped down at the foot of 
the first balsam they came to. The pupils of her eyes were 
big and dark as she looked up at him, quivering with the 
strain of the last great effort, and yet she tried to smile at 
him. 

“You may carry me—some time—but not down a 
mountain,” she said, and laid her head wearily on the 
pillow of her arm, so that her face was concealed from him, 
‘‘And now—please get supper, Sakewawin” 

He spread his blanket over her before he began searching 
for a camp site. He noticed that Tara was already hunt¬ 
ing for roots. Baree followed close at his master’s heels. 
Quite near, David found a streamlet that trickled down 
from the snow line, and to a grassy plot on the edge of this 
he dragged a quantity of dry wood and built a fire. Then 
he made a thick couch of balsam boughs and went to his 
little companion. In the half hour he had been at work 
she had fallen asleep. Utter exhaustion was in the limp¬ 
ness of her slender body as he raised her gently in his arms. 
The handkerchief had slipped back over her shoulder and 
she was wonderfully sweet, and helpless, as she lay with 
her head on his breast. She was still asleep when he 
placed her on the balsams, and it was dark when he 
awakened her for supper. The fire was burning 
brightly. Tara had stretched himself out in a huge, 
dark bulk in the outer glow of it. Baree was close to 




218 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


the fire. The girl sat up, rubbed her eyes, and stared at 
David. 

“ Sakewawin,” she whispered then, looking about her in a 
moment’s bewilderment. 

“Supper,” he said, smiling. “I did it all while you 
were napping, little lady. Are you hungry?” 

He had spread their meal so that she did not have to 
move from her balsams, and he had brought a short piece 
of timber to place as a rest at her back, cushioned by his 
shoulder pack and the blanket. After all his trouble she 
did not eat much. The mistiness was still in her eyes, 
so after he had finished he took away the timber and made 
of the balsams a deep pillow for her, that she might lie 
restfully, with her head well up, while he smoked. He did 
not want her to go to sleep. He wanted to talk. And he 
began by asking how she had so carelessly run away with 
only a pair of moccasins on her feet and no clothes but the 
thin garments she was wearing. 

“They were in Tara’s pack, Sakewawin ,” she explained, 
her eyes glowing like sleepy pools in the fireglow. “They 
were lost.” 

He began then to tell her about Father Roland. She 
listened, growing sleepier, her lashes drooping slowly 
until they formed dark curves on her cheeks. He was 
close enough to marvel at their length, and as he watched 
them, quivering in her efforts to keep awake and listen to 
him, they seemed to him like the dark petals of two beauti- 
ful flowers closing slumbrously for the night. It was a 
wonderful thing to see them open suddenly and find the full 
glory of the sleep-filled eyes on him for an instant, and 
then to watch them slowly close again as she fought vai- 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 219 


iantly to conquer her irresistible drowsiness, the merest 
dimpling of a smile on her lips. The last time she opened 
them he had her picture in his hands, and was looking at it, 
quite close to her, with the fire lighting it up. For a 
moment he thought the sight if it had awakened her com¬ 
pletely. 

“Throw it into the fire,” she said. “Brokaw made me 
let him take it, and I hate it. I hate Brokaw. I hate the 
picture. Burn it.” 

“But I must keep it,” he protested. “Burn it! Why 
it’s . . .” 

“You won’t want it—after to-night.” 

Her eyes were closing again, heavily, for the last time. 

“Why?” he asked, bending over her. 

“Because, Sakewawin . . . you have me . . . 

now,” came her voice, in drowsy softness; and then the 
long lashes lay quietly against her cheeks. 


CHAPTER XX 


H E THOUGHT of her words a long time after eh* 
had fallen asleep. Even in that last moment of her 
consciousness he had found her voice filled with a 
strange faith and a wonderful assurance as it had drifted 
away in a whisper. He would not want the picture any 
more—because he had her / That was what she had said, 
and he knew it was her soul that had spoken to him as she 
had hovered that instant between consciousness and slum¬ 
ber. He looked at her, sleeping under his eyes, and he felt 
upon him for the first time the weight of a sudden trouble, 
a gloomy foreboding—and yet, under it all, like a fire 
banked beneath dead ash, was the warm thrill of his pos¬ 
session. He had spread his blanket over her, and now he 
leaned over and drew back her thick curls. They were 
warm and soft in his fingers, strangely sweet to touch, 
and for a moment or two he fondled them while he gazed 
steadily into the childish loveliness of her face, dimpled 
still by that shadow of a smile with which she had fallen 
asleep. He was beginning to feel that he had accepted for 
himself a tremendous task, and that she, not much more 
than a child, had of course scarcely foreseen its possibilities. 
Her faith in him was a pleasurable thing. It was abso¬ 
lute. He realized it more as the hours dragged on and he 
sat alone by the fire. So great was it that she was going 
back fearlessly to those whom she hated and feared. She 
220 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE m 

was returning not only fearlessly but with a certain defiant 
satisfaction. He could fancy her saying to Hauck, and 
the Red Brute: “I’ve come back. Now touch me if you 
dare ! 99 What would he have to do to live up to that surety 
of her confidence in him? A great deal, undoubtedly„ 
And if he won for her, as she fully expected him to win, 
what would he do with her? Take her to the coast—put 
her into a school somewhere down south? That was his 
first notion. For to him she looked more than ever like 
a child as she lay asleep on her bed of balsams. 

He tried to picture Brokaw. He tried to see Hauck in 
his mental vision, and he thought over again all that the 
girl had told him about herself and these men. As he 
looked at her now—a little, softly breathing thing under his 
gray blanket—it was hard for him to believe anything so 
horrible as she had suggested. Perhaps her fears had been 
grossly exaggerated. The exchange of gold between 
Hauck and the Red Brute had probably been for some¬ 
thing else. Even men engulfed in the brutality of the trade 
they were in would not think of such an appalling 
crime. And then—with a fierceness that made his blood 
boil—came the thought of that time when Brokaw had 
caught her in his arms, and had held her head back until 
it hurt —and had kissed her! Baree had crept between his 
knees, and David’s fingers closed so tightly in the loose 
skin of his neck that the dog whined. He rose to his feet 
and stood gazing down at the girl. He stood there for a 
long time without moving or making a sound. 

“A little woman,” he whispered to himself at last. 
“Not a child.” 

From that moment his blood was hot with a desire to 


m THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


teach the Nest. He Lad never thought seriously of 
physical struggle with men except in the way of sport. 
His disposition had always been to regard such a thing as 
barbarous, and he had never taken advantage of his skill 
with the gloves as the average man might very probably 
have done. To fight was to lower one’s self-respect enor¬ 
mously, he thought. It was not a matter of timidity, but 
of very strong conviction—an entrenchment that had saved 
him from wreaking vengeance—in the hour when another 
man would have killed. But there, in that room in his 
home, he had stood face to face with a black, revolting sin. 
There had been nothing left to shield, nothing to protect. 
Here it was different. A soul had given itself into his pro¬ 
tection, a soul as pure as the stars shining over the moun¬ 
tain tops, and its little keeper lay there under his eyes 
sleeping in the sweet faith that it was safe with him. A 
little later his fingers tingled with an odd thrill as he took 
his automatic out of his pack, loaded it carefully, and 
placed it in his pocket where it could be easily reached. 
The act was a declaration of something ultimately definite. 
He stretched himself out near the fire and went to sleep 
with the force of this declaration brewing strangely within 
him. 

He was awake with the summer dawn and the sun was 
beginning to tint up the big red mountain when they began 
the descent into the valley. Before they started he loaned 
the girl his comb and single military brush, and for fifteen 
minutes sat watching her while she brushed the tangles 
out of her hair until it fell about her in a thick, waving 
splendour. At the nape of her neck she tied it with a bit 
of string which he found for her, and after that, as they 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 223 

travelled downward, he observed how the rebellious 
tresses, shimmering and dancing about her, persisted in 
forming themselves into curls again. In an hour they 
reached the valley, and for a few moments they sat down 
to rest, while Tara foraged among the rocks for marmots. 
It was a wonderful valley into which they had come. 
From where they sat, it was like an immense park. Green 
slopes reached almost to the summits of the mountains, 
and to a point half way up these slopes—the last timber 
line—clumps of spruce and balsam trees were scattered 
over the green as if set there by hands of men. Some of 
these timber patches were no larger than the decorative 
clumps in a city park, and others covered acres and tens of 
aaes; and at the foot of the slopes on either side, like 
decorative fringes, were thin and unbroken lines of forest. 
Bo;ween these two lines of forest lay the open valley of 
soft and undulating meadow, dotted with its purplish 
boiiks of buffalo-, willow-, and mountain-sage, its green 
coppices of wild rose and thorn, and its clumps of trees. 
In the hollow of the valley ran a stream. 

And this was her home! She was telling him about it 
as they sat there, and he listened to her, and watched her 
bird-like movements, without breaking in to ask questions 
which the night had shaped in his mind. She pointed out 
gray summits on which she had stood. Off there, just 
visible in the gray mist of early sunshine, was the mountain 
where she had found Tara five years ago—a tiny cub who 
must have lost his mother. Perhaps the Indians had 
killed her. And that long, rock-strewn slide, so steep in 
phices that he shuddered when he thought of what she had 
done, was where she and Tara had climbed over the range 


224 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


in their flight. She chose the rocks so that Tara would 
leave no trail. He regarded that slide as conclusive evi¬ 
dence of the very definite resolution that must have inspired 
her. A fit of girlish temper would not have taken her up 
that rock slide, and in the night. He thought it time to 
speak of what was weighing upon his mind. 

“Listen to me, Marge,” he said, pointing toward the red 
mountain ahead of them. “Off there, you say, is the 
Nest. What are we going to do when we arrive there?” 

The little lines gathered between her eyes again as she 
looked at him. 

“Why—tell them,” she said. 

“Tell them what?” 

“That you’ve come for me, and that we’re going away, 
Sakewawin .” 

“And if they object? If Brokaw and Hauck say you 
cannot go?” 

“We’ll go anyway, Sakewawin .” 

“That’s a pretty name you’ve given me,” he mused, 
thinking of something else. “I like it.” 

For the first time she blushed—blushed until her face 
was like one of the wild roses in those prickly copses of the 
valley. 

And then he added: 

“You must not tell them too much—at first. Marge. 
Remember that you were lost, and I found you. You 
must give me time to get acquainted with Hauck and 
Brokaw.” 

She nodded, but there was a moment’s anxiety in her 
eyes, and he saw for an instant the slightest quiver in her 
throat. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 225 

“You won’t—let them—keep me? No matter what 
they say—you won’t let them keep me?” 

He jumped up with a laugh and tilted her chin so that 
he looked straight into her eyes; and her faith filled them 
again in a flood. 

“No—you’re going with me,” he promised. “Come. 
I’m quite anxious to meet Hauck and the Red Brute!” 

It seemed singular to David that they met no one in the 
valley that day, and the girl’s explanation that practically 
all travel came from the north and west, and stopped at the 
Nest, did not fully satisfy him. He still wondered why they 
did not encounter one of the searching parties that must 
have been sent out for her—until she told him that, since 
Nisikoos died, she and Tara had gone quite frequently into 
the mountains and remained all night, so that perhaps no 
search had been made for her after all. Hauck had not 
seemed to care. More frequently than otherwise he had 
not missed her. Twice she had been away for two nights 
and two days. It was only because Brokaw had given that 
gold to Hauck that she had feared pursuit. If Hauck 
had bought her . . . 

She spoke of that possible sale as if she might have been 
the merest sort of chattel. And then she startled him by 
saying: 

“I have known of those white men from the north buy¬ 
ing Indian girls. I have seen them sold for whisky. 
Ugh ! ” She shuddered. “ Nisikoos and I overheard them 
one night. Hauck was selling a girl for a little sack of 
gold—like that. Nisikoos held me more tightly than ever, 
that night. I don’t know why. She was terribly afraid 
of that man—Hauck. Why did she live with him if she 


m THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


was afraid of him? Do you know? I wouldn’t. I’d run 
away.” 

He shook his head. 

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you, my child.” 

Her eyes turned on him suddenly. 

“Why do you call me that—a child?” 

“Because you’re not a woman; because you’re so veiy, 
very young, and I’m so very old,” he laughed. 

For a long time after that she was silent as they travelled 
steadily toward the red mountain. 

They ate their dinner in the sombre shadow of it. Most 
of the afternoon Marge rode her bear. It was sundown 
when they stopped for their last meal. The Nest was still 
three miles farther on, and the stars were shining brilliantly 
before they came to the little, wooded plain in the edge of 
which Hauck had hidden away his place of trade. Wh'tn 
they were some hundred yards away they came over a 
knoll and David saw the glow of fires. The girl stopped 
suddenly and her hand caught his arm. He counted four 
of those fires in the open. A fifth glowed faintly, as if 
back in timber. Sounds came to them—the slow, hollow 
booming of a tom-tom, and voices. They could see shad¬ 
ows moving. The girl’s fingers were pinching David’s arm. 

“The Indians have come in,” she whispered. 

There was a thrill of uneasiness in her words. It was 
not fear. He could see that she was puzzled, and that she 
had not expected to find fires or those moving shadows. 
Her eyes were steady and shining as she looked at him. 
It seemed to him that she had grown taller, and more like 
a woman, as they stood there. Something in her face 
made him ask; 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 227 

“Why have they come?” 

“I don’t know,” she said. 

She started down the knoll straight for the fires. Tara 
and Baree filed behind them. Beyond the glow of the 
camp a dark bulk took shape against the blackness of the 
forest. David guessed that it was the Nest. He made 
out a deep, low building, unlighted so far as he could see. 
Then they entered into the fireglow. Their appearance 
produced a strange and instant quiet. The beating of the 
tom-tom ceased. Voices died. Dark faces stared—and 
that was all. There were about fifty of them about the 
fires, David figured. And not a white man’s face among 
them. They were all Indians. A lean, night-eyed, 
sinister-looking lot. He was conscious that they were 
scrutinizing him more than they were the girl. He could 
almost feel the prick of their eyes. With her head up, his 
companion walked between the fires and beyond them, 
looking neither to one side nor the other. They turned the 
end of the huge log building and on this side it was glowing 
dimly with light, and David faintly heard voices. The 
girl passed swiftly into a hollow of gloom, calling softly to 
Tara. The bear followed her, a grotesque, slowly moving 
hulk, and David waited. He heard the clink of a chain. 
A moment later she returned to him. 

“There is a light in Hauck’s room,” she said. “His 
council room, be calls it—where he makes bargains. I 
hope they are both there, Sakewawin —both Hauck and 
Brokaw.” She seized his hand, and held it tightly as she 
led him deeper into darkness. “I wonder why so many 
of the Indians are in? I did not know they were coming.. 
It is the wrong time of year for—a crowd like that! ” 


228 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


He felt the quiver in her voice. She was quite excited, 
he knew. And yet not about the Indians, nor the strange¬ 
ness of their presence. It was her triumph that made her 
tremble in the darkness, a wonderful anticipation of the 
greatest event that had ever happened in her life. She 
hoped that Hauck and Brokaw were in that room! She 
would confront them there, with him. That was it. She 
felt her bondage—her prisonment—in this savage place 
was ended; and she was eager to find them, and let them 
know that she was no longer afraid, or alone—no longer 
need obey or fear them. He felt the thrill of it in the hot, 
fierce little clasp of her hand. He saw it glowing in her 
eyes when they passed through the light of a window. 
Then they turned again, at the back of the building. 
They paused at a door. Not a ray of light broke the 
gloom here. The stars seemed to make the blackness 
deeper. Her fingers tightened. 

“You must be careful/’ he said. “And—remember/** 

“I will,” she whispered. 

It was his last warning. The door opened slowly, with 
a creaking sound, and they entered into a long, gloomy 
hall, illumined by a single oil lamp that sputtered and 
smoked in its bracket on one of the walls. The hall gave 
him an idea of the immensity of the building. From the 
far end of it, through a partly open door, came a reek of 
tobacco smoke, and loud voices—a burst of coarse laughter, 
a sudden volley of curses that died away in a still louder 
roar of merriment. Some one closed the door from within. 
The girl was staring toward the end of the hall, and 
shuddering. 

“That is the way it has been—growing worse and worse 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 229 

since Nisikoos died,” she said. “In there the white men 
who come down from the north, drink, and gamble, and 
quarrel. They are always quarrelling. This room is ours 
—Nisikoos* and mine.” She touched with her hand a 
door near which they were standing. Then she pointed 
to another. There were half a dozen doors up and down 
the hall. “And that is Hauck’s.” 

He threw off his pack, placed it on the floor, with his 
rifle across it. When he straightened, the girl was listening 
at the door of Hauck’s room. Beckoning to him she 
knocked on it lightly, and then opened it. David entered 
close behind her. It was a rather large room—his one 
impression as he crossed the threshold. In the centre of it 
was a table, and over the table hung an oil lamp with a 
tin reflector. In the light of this lamp sat two men. In 
his first glance he made up his mind which was Hauck 
and which was Brokaw. It was Brokaw, he thought, who 
was facing them as they entered—a man he could hate even 
if he had never heard of him before. Big. Loose-shoul¬ 
dered. A carnivorous-looking giant with a mottled, red¬ 
dish face and bleary eyes that had an amazed and watery 
stare in them. Apparently the girl’s knock had not been 
heard, for it was a moment before the other man swung 
slowly about in his chair so that he could see them. That 
was Hauck. David knew it. He was almost a half 
smaller than the other, with round, bullish shoulders, a 
thick neck, and eyes wherein might lurk an incredible 
cruelty. He popped half out of his seat when he saw the 
girl, and a stranger. His jaws seemed to tighten with a 
snap. A snap that could almost be heard. But it was 
Brokaw’s face that held David’s eyes. He was two thirds 


230 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


drunk. There was no doubt about it, if he was any sort of 
judge of that kind of imbecility. One of his thick, huge 
hands was gripping a bottle. Hauck had evidently been 
reading him something out of a ledger, a Post ledger, which 
he held now in one hand. David was surprised at the 
quiet and unemotional way in which the girl began speak¬ 
ing. She said that she had wandered over into the other 
valley and was lost when this stranger found her. He had 
been good to her, and was on his way to the settlement 
on the coast. His name was . . . 

She got no further than that. Brokaw had taken his 
devouring gaze from her and was staring at David. He 
lurched suddenly to his feet and leaned over the table, a 
new sort of surprise in his heavy countenance. He 
stretched out a hand. His voice was a bellow. 

" McKenna!” 

He was speaking directly at David—calling him by 
name. There was as little doubt of that as of his drunken¬ 
ness. There was also an unmistakable note of fellowship 
in his voice. McKenna! David opened his mouth to 
correct him when a second thought occurred to him in a 
mildly inspirational way. Why not McKenna? The 
girl was looking at him, a bit surprised, questioning him in 
the directness of her gaze. He nodded, and smiled at 
Brokaw. The giant came around the table, still holding 
out his big, red hand. 

“Mac! God! You don’t mean to say you’ve for¬ 
gotten . . .” 

David took the hand. 

“Brokaw!” he chanced. 

The other’s hand was as cold as a piece of beef. But it 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 231 

possessed a crushing strength. Hauck was staring from 
one to the other, and suddenly Brokaw turned to him, still 
pumping David’s hand. 

“McKenna—that young devil of Kicking Horse, 

Hauck! You’ve heard me speak of him. McKenna 
» 

The girl had backed to the door. She was pale. Her 
eyes were shining, and she was looking straight at David 
when Brokaw released his hand. 

“ Good-night, Sakewawin ! 99 she said. 

It was very distinct, that word —Sakewaurin ! David 
had never heard it come quite so clearly from her lips. 
There was something of defiance and pride in her utter¬ 
ance of it—and intentional and decisive emphasis to it. 
She smiled at him as she went through the door, 
and in that same breath Hauck had followed her. 
They disappeared. When David turned he found Brokaw 
backed against the table, his hands gripping the edge of it, 
his face distorted by passion. It was a terrible face to 
look into—to stand before, alone in that room—a face 
filled with menace and murder. So sudden had been the 
change in it that David was stunned for a moment. In 
that space of perhaps a quarter of a minute neither uttered 
a sound. Then Brokaw leaned slowly forward, his great 
hands clenched, and demanded in a hissing voice: 

“What did she mean when she called you that— 
Sakewawin ? What did she mean?” 

It was not now the voice of a drunken man, but the 
voice of a man ready to kill. 


CHAPTER XXI 


5 AKEWAWIN! What did she mean when she 
called you that?” 

It was Brokaw’s voice again, turning the words 
round but repeating them. He made a step toward David, 
his hands clenched more tightly and his whole hulk growing 
tense. His eyes, blazing as if through a very thin film of 
water—water that seemed to cling there by some strange 
magic—were horrible, David thought. Sakewawin ! A 
pretty name for himself, he had told the girl—and here it 
was raising the very devil with this drink-bloated colos¬ 
sus. He guessed quickly. It was decidedly a matter of 
guessing quickly and of making prompt and satisfactory 
explanation—or, a throttling where he stood. His mind 
worked like a race-horse. “Sakewawin” meant some¬ 
thing that had enraged Brokaw. A jealous rage. A rage 
that had filled his aqueous eyes with a lurid glare. So 
David said, looking into them calmly, and with a little 
feigned surprise: 

“Wasn’t she speaking to you, Brokaw?” 

It was a splendid shot. David scarcely knew why he 
made it, except that he was moved by a powerful impulse 
which just now he had not time to analyze. It was this 
same impulse that had kept him from revealing himself 
when Brokaw had mistaken him for someone else. Chance 
bad thrown a course of action into his way and he had ac- 
232 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 233 


cepted it almost involuntarily. It had suddenly occurred 
to him that he would give much to be alone with this half- 
drunken man for a few hours—as McKenna. He might 
last long enough in that disguise to discover things. But 
not with Hauck watching him, for Hauck was four fifths 
sober, and there was a depth to his cruel eyes which he did 
not like. He watched the effect of his words on Brokaw. 
The tenseness left his body, his hands unclenched slowly, 
his heavy jaw relaxed—and David laughed softly. He 
felt that he was out of deep water now. This fellow, half 
filled with drink, was wonderfully credulous. And he was 
sure that his watery eyes could not see very well, though 
his ears had heard distinctly. 

“She was looking at you, Brokaw—straight at you— 
when she said good-night,” he added. 

“You sure—sure she said it to me, Mac?” 

David nodded, even as his blood ran a little cold. 

A leering grin of joy spread over Brokaw’s face. 

“The—the little devil!” he said, gloatingly. 

“What does it mean?” David asked. “ Sakewawin — 
I had never heard it.” He lied calmly, turning his head a 
bit out of the light. 

Brokaw stared at him a moment before answering. 

“When a girl says that—it means —she belongs to you 
he said. “In Indian it means— 'possession! Dam* . 
of course you’re right! She said it to me. She’s mine. 
She belongs to me. I own her. And I thought . . 

He caught up the bottle and turned out half a glass of 
liquor, swaying unsteadily: 

“Drink, Mac?” 

David shook his head. 


4 




234 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“Not now. Let’s go to your shack if you’ve got one. 
Lots to talk about—old times—Kicking Horse, you know. 
And this girl? I can’t believe it! If it’s true, you’re a 
lucky dog.” 

He was not thinking of consequences—of to-morrow. 
To-night was all he asked for—alone with Brokaw. That 
mountain of flesh, stupefied with liquor, was no match for 
him now. To-morrow he might hold the whip hand, if 
Hauck did not return too soon. 

“Lucky dog! Lucky dog!” He kept repeating that. 
It was like music in Brokaw’s ears. And such a girl! An 
angel! He couldn’t believe it! Brokaw’s face was like a 
red fire in his exultation, his lustful joy, his great triumph. 
He drank the liquor he had proffered David, and drank a 
second time, rumbling in his thick chest like some kind of 
animal. Of course she was an angel! Hadn’t he, and 
Hauck, and that woman who had died, made her grow into 
an angel—just for him? She belonged to him. Always 
had belonged to him, and he had waited a long time. If 
she had ever called any other man that name—Sakewawin 
—he would have killed him. Certain. Killed him dead. 
This was the first time she had ever called him that. 
Lucky dog? You bet he was. They’d go to his shack— 
and talk. He drank a third time. He rolled heavily as 
they entered the hall, David praying that they would not 
meet Hauck. He had his victim. He was sure of him. 
And the hall was empty. He picked up his gun and pack, 
and held to Brokaw’s arm as they went out into the night. 
Brokaw staggered guidingly into a wall uf darkness, talking 
thickly about lucky dogs. They had gone perhaps a hun¬ 
dred paces when he stopped suddenly, very close to some- 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 235 

thing that looked to David like a section of tall fence 
built of small trees. It was the cage. lie jumped at that 
conclusion before he could see it clearly in the clouded 
starlight. From it there came a growling rumble, a deep 
breath that was like air escaping from a pair of bellows, and 
he saw faintly a huge, motionless shape beyond the 
stripped and upright sapling trunks. 

“Grizzly,” said Brokaw, trying to keep himself on an 
even balance. “Big bear-fight to-morrow, Mac. My 
bear—her bear—a great fight! Everybody in to see it. 
Nothing like a bear-fight, eh? S’prise her, won’t it— 
pretty little wench! When she sees her bear fighting mine? 
Betchu hundred dollars my bear kills Tara!” 

“To-morrow,” said David. “I’ll bet to-morrow. 
Where’s the shack?” 

He was anxious to reach that, and he hoped it was a 
good distance away. He feared every moment that he 
would hear Hauck’s voice or his footsteps behind them, and 
he knew that Hauck’s presence would spoil everything. 
Brokaw, in his cups, was talkative—almost garrulous. 
Already he had explained the mystery of the cage, and the 
Indians. The big fight was to take place in the cage, and 
the Indians had come in to see it. He found himself 
wondering, as they went through the darkness, how it had 
all been kept from the girl, and why Brokaw should de¬ 
liberately lower himself still more in her esteem by allowing 
the combat to occur. He asked him about it when they 
entered the shack to which Brokaw guided him, and after 
they had lighted a lamp. It was a small, gloomy, whisky¬ 
smelling place. Brokaw went directly to a box nailed 
against the wall and returned with a quart flask that re- 


\m THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

sembled an army canteen, and two tin cups. He sat 
down at a small table, his bloated, red face in the light of 
the lamp, that queer animal-like rumbling in his throat, as 
he turned out the liquor. David had heard porcupines 
make something like the same sound. He pulled his hat 
lower over his eyes to hide the gleam of them as Brokaw 
told him what he and Hauck had planned. The bear in 
,the cage belonged to him—Brokaw. A big brute. Fierce. 
A fighter. Hauck and he were going to bet on his bear 
because it would surely kill Tara. Make a big clean-up, 
they would. Tara was soft. Too easy living. And they 
needed money because those scoundrels over on the coast 
had failed to get in enough whisky for their trade. The 
girl had almost spoiled their plans by going away with 
Tara. And he—Mac—was a devil of a good fellow for 
bringing her back! They’d pull off the fight to-morrow. 
If the girl—that little bird-devil that belonged to him—■ 
didn’t like it . . . 

He brought the canteen down with a bang, and shoved 
one of the cups across to David. 

“Of course, she belongs to you,” said David, encourag¬ 
ingly, “but—confound you—I can’t believe it, you old 
dog! I can’t believe it!” He leaned over and gave 
Brokaw a jocular slap, forcing a laugh out of himself. 
“She’s too pretty for you. Prettiest kid I ever saw! 
How did it happen? Eh? You— lucky —dog! ” 

He was fairly trembling as he saw the red fire of satisfac¬ 
tion, of gloating pleasure, deepen in Brokaw’s face. 

“She hasn’t belonged to you very long, eh?” 

“Long time, long time,” replied Brokaw, pausing with 
his cup half way to his mouth. “Years ago.” 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 237 

Suddenly he lowered the cup so forcefully that half 
the liquor in it was spilled over the table. He thrust his 
huge shoulders and red face toward David, and in an 
instant there was a snarl on his thick lips. 

“Hauck said she didn’t,” he growled. “What do you 
think of that, Mac?—said she didn’t belong to me any 
more, an’ I’d have to pay for her keep! Gawd, I did. I 
gave him a lot of gold!” 

“You were a fool,” said David, trying to choke back his 
eagerness. “A fool!” 

“I should have killed him, shouldn’t I, Mac—killed 
him an’ took her?” cried Brokaw huskily, his passion rising 
as he knotted his huge fists on the table. “Killed him 
like you killed the Breed for that long-haired she-devil 
over at Copper Cliff!” 

“I—don’t—know,” said David, slowly, praying that 
he might not say the wrong thing now. “I don’t know 
What claim you had on her, Brokaw. If I knew . . .” 

He waited. Brokaw did not seem altogether like a 
drunken man now, and for a moment he feared that dis¬ 
covery had come. He leaned over the table. The watery 
film seemed to drop from his eyes for an instant and his 
teeth gleamed wolfishly. David was glad the lamp chim¬ 
ney was black with soot, and that the rim of his hat sha¬ 
dowed his face, for it seemed to him that Brokaw’s vision 
had grown suddenly better. 

“I should have killed him, an’ took'her,” repeated 
Brokaw, his voice heavy with passion. “I should have 
had her long ago, but Hauck’s woman kept her from me. 
She’s been mine all along, ever since . , His mind 

seemed to lag. He drew his hulking shoulders back 


238 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

slowly. “But I’ll have her to-morrow,” he mumbled, 
as if he had suddenly forgotten David and was talking to 
himself. “To-morrow. Next day we’ll start north. 
Hauck can’t say anything now. I’ve paid him. She’s 
mine—mine now—to-night! By . . .” 

David shuddered at what he saw in the brute’s revolting 
face. It was the dawning of a sudden, terrible idea. To¬ 
night! It blazed there in his eyes, grown watery again. 
Quickly David turned out more liquor, and thrust one of 
the cups into Brokaw’s hand. The giant drank. His 
body sank into piggish laxness. For a moment the danger 
was past. David knew that time was precious. He must 
force his hand. 

“And if Hauck troubles you,” he cried, striking the 
table a blow with his fist, “I’ll help you settle for him, 
Brokaw! I’ll do it for old time’s sake. I’ll do to him 
what I did to the Breed. The girl’s yours. She’s be¬ 
longed to you for a long time, eh? Tell me about it, 
Brokaw—tell me before Hauck comes!” 

Could he never make that bloated fiend tell him what 
he wanted to know? Brokaw stared at him stupidly, 
and then all at once he started, as if some one had pricked 
him into consciousness, and a slow grin began to spread 
over his face. It was a reminiscent, horrible sort of leer, 
not a smile—the expression of a man who gloats over a 
revolting and unspeakable thing. 

“She’s mine—been mine ever since she was a baby,” he 
confided, leaning again over the table. “Good friend, 
give her to me, Mac—good friend but a dam’ fool,” he 
chuckled. He rubbed his huge hands together and turned 
out more liquor. “Dam’ fool!” he repeated. “Any 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 23$ 

«nan’s a dam’ fool to turn down a pretty woman, eh, Mac? 
An’ she was pretty, he says. My girl’s mother, you know. 
She must have been pretty. It was off there—in the bush 
country—years ago. The kid you brought in to-day was a 
baby then—alone with her mother. Ho, ho! deuced easy 
'—deuced easy! But he was a dam’ fool!” 

He drank with incredible slowness, it seemed to David. 
It was torture to watch him, with the fear, every instant, 
that Hauck would come. 

“What happened?” he urged. 

“Bucky—my friend—in love with that woman, O’- 
Doone’s wife,” resumed Brokaw. “Dead crazy, Mac. 
Crazier’n you were over the Breed’s woman, only he 
didn’t have the nerve. Just moped around—waiting— 
keeping out of O’Doone’s way. Trapper, O’Doone was— 
or a Company runner. Forgot which. Anyway he went 
on a long trip, in winter, and got laid up with a broken leg 
long way from home. Wife and baby alone, an’ Bucky 
sneaked up one day and found the woman sick with fever. 
Out of her head! Dead out, Bucky says—an’ my Gawd! 
If she didn’t think he was her husband come back! That 
easy, Mac—an’ he lacked the nerve! Crazy in love with 
her, he was, an’ didn’t dare play the part. Told me it was 
conscience. Bah! it wasn’t. He was afraid. Scared* 
A fool. Then he said the fever must have touched him. 
Ho, ho! it was funny. He was a scared fool. Wish Vd 
been there, Mac; wish 1 had!” 

His eyes half closed, gleaming in narrow, shining slits. 
His chin dropped on his chest. David prodded him on. 

“Bucky got her to run away with him,” continued 
Brokaw. “ Her and the kid, while she was still out of her 


340 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

head. Bucky even got her to write a note, he said, telling 
O’Doone she was sick of him an’ was running away with 
another man. Bucky didn’t give his own name, of course. 
An’ the woman didn’t know what she was doing. They 
started west with the kid, and all the time Bucky was 
afraid 1 He dragged the woman on a sledge, and snow 
covered their trail, He hid in a cabin a hundred miles from 
O’Doone’s, an’ it was there the woman come to her senses. 
Gawd! it must have been exciting! Bucky says she was 
like a mad woman, and that she ran screeching out into 
the night, leaving the kid with him. He followed but 
he couldn’t find her. He waited, but she never came back. 
A snow storm covered her trail. Then Bucky says lie 
went mad—the fool! He waited till spring, keeping that 
kid, and then he made up his mind to get it back to Papa 
O’Doone in some way. He sneaked back where the cabin 
had been, and found nothing but char there. It had been 
burned. Oh, the devil, but it was funny! And after all 
this trouble he hadn’t dared to take O’Doone’s place with 
the woman. Conscience? Bah! He was a fool. You 
don’t get a pretty woman like that very often, eh, Mac?” 
Unsteadily he tilted the flask to turn himself out another 
drink. His voice was thickening. David rejoiced when 
he saw that the flask was empty. 

“Dam’!” said Brokaw, shaking it. 

“Go on,” insisted David. “You haven’t told me how 
you came by the girl, Brokaw?” 

The watery film was growing thicker over Brokaw’s 
eyes. He brought himself back to his story with an ap¬ 
parent effort. 

“Came west, Bucky did—with the kid,’* he went on. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 241 

“Struck my cabin, on the Mackenzie, a year later. Told 
me all about it. Then one day he sneaked away and left 
her with me, begging me to put her where she’d be safe. I 
did. Gave her to Hauck’s woman, and told her Bucky’s 
story. Later, Hauck came over here and built this place. 
Three years ago I come down from the Yukon, and saw the 
kid. Pretty? Gawd, she was! Almost a woman. And 
she was mine. I told ’em so. Mebby the woman would 
have cheated me, but I had Hauck on the hip because I 
saw him kill a man when he was drunk—a white man from 
Fort Mac Pherson. Helped him hide the body. And then— 
oh, it was funny!—I ran across Bucky! He was living in a 
shack a dozen miles from here, an’ he didn’t know Marge 
was the O’Doone baby. I told him a big lie—told him 
the kid died, an’ that I’d heard the woman had killed 
herself, and that O’Doone was in a lunatic asylum. Mebby 
he did have a conscience, the fool! Guess he was a little 
crazy himself. Went away soon after that. Never 
heard of him since. An’ I’ve been hanging round until 
the girl was old enough to live with a man. Ain’t 
I done right, Mac? Don’t she belong to me? An’ to¬ 
morrow . . 

His head rolled. He recovered himself with an effort, 
and leaned heavily against the table. His face was almost 
barren of human expression. It was the face of a monster, 
unlighted by reason, stripped of mind and soul. And 
David, glaring into it across the table, questioned him 
once more, even as he heard the crunch of footsteps out¬ 
side, and knew that Hauck was coming—coming in all 
probability to unmask him in the part he had played. 
But Hauck was too late. He was ready to fight now, and 


242 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


as he held himself prepared for the struggle he asked that 
question. 

“And this man—Bucky; what was his other name, 
Brokaw? ,, 

Brokaw’s thick lips moved, and then came his voice, 
in a husky whisper: 

“Tavish!” 


CHAPTER XXII 


T HE next instant Hauck was at the open door. He 
did not cross the threshold at once, but stood there 
for perhaps twenty seconds—his gray, hard face 
looking in on them with eyes in which there was a cold 
and sinister glitter. Brokaw, with the fumes of liquor 
thick in his brain, tried to nod an invitation for him to 
enter; his head rolled grotesquely and his voice was a croak. 
David rose slowly to his feet, thrusting back his chair. 
From contemplating Brokaw’s sagging body, Hauck’s eyes 
were levelled at him. And then his lips parted. One would 
not have called it a smile. It revealed to David a deadly 
animosity which the man was trying to hide under the dis¬ 
guise of that grin, and he knew that Hauck had dis¬ 
covered that he was not McKenna. Swiftly David shot a 
glance at Brokaw. The giant’s head and shoulders lay 
on the table, and he made a sudden daring effort to save a 
little more time for himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s terribly drunk.” 

Hauck nodded his head—he kept nodding it, that 
cold glitter in his eyes, the steady, insinuating grin 
still there. 

“Yes, he’s drunk,” he said, his voice as hard as a rock. 
“Better come to the house. I’ve got a room for you. 
There’s only one bunk in here—McKenna.” 

He dragged out the name slowly, a bit tauntingly it 
243 


244 THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOONE 

seemed to David. And David laughed. Might as well 
play his last card well, he thought. 

<f My name isn’t McKenna,” he said. “It’s David 
Raine. He made a mistake, and he’s so drunk I haven’t 
been able to explain.” 

Without answering, Hauck backed out of the door. It 
was an invitation for David to follow. Again he carried 
his pack and gun with him through the darkness, and 
Hauck uttered not a word as they returned to the Nest. 
The night was brighter now, and David could see Baree 
close at his heels, following him as silently as a shadow. 
The dog slunk out of sight when they came to the building. 
They did not enter from the rear this time. Hauck led 
the way to a door that opened into the big room from which 
had come the sound of cursing and laughter a little before. 
There were ten or a dozen men in that room, all white men, 
and, upon entering, David was moved by a sudden sus¬ 
picion that they were expecting him—that Hauck had 
prepared them for his appearance. There was no liquor in 
sight. If there had been bottles and glasses on the tables, 
they had been cleared away—but no one had thought to 
wipe away certain liquid stains that David saw shim¬ 
mering wetly in the glow of the three big lamps hanging 
from the ceiling. He looked the men over quickly as he 
followed the free trader. Never, he thought, had he seen a 
rougher or more unpleasant-looking lot. He caught more 
than one eye filled with the glittering menace he had seen 
in Hauck’s. Not a man nodded at him, or spoke to him. 
He passed close to one raw-boned individual, so close that 
he brushed against him, and there was an unconcealed 
and threatening animosity in this man’s face as he glared 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE OT>OONF 245 

up at him. By the time he had passed through the room 
his suspicion had become a conviction. Hauck had pur¬ 
posely put him on parade, and there was a deep and sinister 
significance in the attitude of these men. 

They passed through the hall into which he and Marge 
had entered from the opposite side of the Nest, and Hauok 
paused at the door of a room almost opposite to the one 
which the girl had said belonged to her. 

! “This will be your room while you are our guest,” he 
said. The glitter in his eyes softened as he nodded at 
David. He tried to speak a bit affably, but David felt 
that his effort was rather unsuccessful. It failed to cover 
the hard note in his voice and the curious twitch of his 
upper lip—a snarl almost—as he forced a smile. “Make 
yourself at home,” he added. “We’ll have breakfast in 
the morning with my niece.” He paused for a moment 
and then said, looking keenly at David: “I suppose you 
tried hard to make Brokaw understand he had made a 
mistake, and that you wasn’t McKenna? Brokaw is 
a good fellow when he isn’t drunk.” 

David was glad that he turned away without waiting 
for an answer. He did not want to talk with Hauck 
to-night. He wanted to turn over in his mind what he had 
learned from Brokaw, and to-morrow act with the cool 
judgment which was more or less characteristic of him. 
He did not believe even now that there would be any¬ 
thing melodramatic in the outcome of the affair. There 
would be an unpleasantness, of course; but when both 
Hauck and Brokaw were confronted with a certain situa¬ 
tion, and with the peculiarly significant facts which he now 
held in his possession, he could not see how they would 


246 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


be able to place any very great obstacle in the way of his 
determination to take Marge from the Nest. He did not 
think of personal harm to himself, and as he entered his 
room, where a lamp had been lighted for him, his mind 
had already begun to work on a plan of action. He would 
compromise with them. In return for the loss of the girl 
they should have his promise—his oath, if necessary—not 
to reveal the secret of the traffic in which they were en¬ 
gaged, or of that still more important affair between 
Hauck and the white man from Fort Mac Pherson. He 
was certain that, in his drunkenness, Brokaw had spoken 
the truth, no matter what he might deny to-morrow. 
They would not hazard an investigation, though to lose 
the girl now, at the very threshold of his exultant realiza* 
tion, would be like taking the earth from under Brokaw’s 
feet. In spite of the tenseness of the situation David 
found himself chuckling with satisfaction. It would be 
unpleasant—very—he repeated that assurance to himself; 
but that self-preservation would be the first law of these 
rascals he was equally positive, and he began thinking of 
other things that just now were of more thrilling import 
to him. 

It was Tavish, then—that half-mad hermit in his mice- 
infested cabin—who had been at the bottom of it all! 
Tavish! The discovery did not amaze him profoundly. 
He had never been able to dissociate Tavish from the pic¬ 
ture, unreasoning though he confessed himself to be, and 
now that his mildly impossible conjectures had suddenly 
developed into facts, he was not excited. It was another 
thought—or other thoughts—that stirred him more deeply, 
and brought a heat into his blood. His mind leaped back 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 247 

to that scene of years ago, when Marge O’Doone’s mother 
had run shrieking out in the storm of night to escape 
Tavish. But she had not died l That was the thought that 
burned in David’s brain now. She had lived. She had 
searched for her husband—Michael O’Doone; a half- 
mad wanderer of the forests at first, she may have been. 
She had searched for years. And she was still searching 
for him when he had met her that night on the Trans¬ 
continental ! For it was she—Marge O’Doone, the mother, 
the wife, into whose dark, haunting eyes he had gazed from 
out the sunless depths of his own despair! Her mother. 
Alive. Seeking a Michael O’Doone—seeking—seeking 

He was filled with a great desire to go at once to the 
Girl and tell her this wonderful new fact that had come 
into her life, and he found himself suddenly at the door of 
his room, with his fingers on the latch. Standing there, 
he shrugged his shoulders, laughing softly at himself as he 
realized how absurdly sensational he was becoming all 
at once. To-morrow would be time. He filled and 
lighted his pipe, and in the whitish fumes of his tobacco he 
could picture quite easily the gray, dead face of Tavish, 
hanging at the end of his meat rack. Pacing restlessly 
back and forth across his room, he recalled the scenes of 
that night, and of days and nights that had followed. 
Brokaw had given him the key that was unlocking door 
after door. “Guess he was a little crazy,” Brokaw had 
said, speaking of Tavish as he had last known him on the 
Firepan. Crazy! Going mad! And at last he had 
killed himself. Was it possible that a man of Tavish’s 
sort could be haunted for so long by spectres of the past? 


ns THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


It seemed unreasonable. He thought of Father Roland 
and of the mysterious room in the Chateau, where he 
worshipped at the shrine of a woman and a child who were 
gone. 

He clenched his hands, and stopped himself. What 
had leapt into his mind was as startling to his inner con¬ 
sciousness as the unexpected flash of magnesium in a dark 
room. It was unthinkable—impossible; and yet, follow¬ 
ing it, he found himself face to face with question after 
question which he made no effort to answer. He was 
dazed for a moment as if by the terrific impact of a thing 
which had neither weight nor form. Tavish, the woman, 
the girl—Father Roland! Absurd. He shook himself, 
literally shook himself, to get rid of that wildly impossible 
idea. He drove his mind back to the photograph of the 
girl—and the woman. How had she come into possession 
of the picture which Brokaw had taken? What had 
Nisikoos tried to say to Marge O’Doone in those last 
moments when she was dying—whispered words which the 
girl had not heard because she was crying, and her heart 
was breaking? Did Nisikoos know that the mother was 
alive? Had she sent the picture to her when she realized 
that the end of her own time was drawing near? There 
was something unreasonable in this too, but it was the 
only solution that came to him. 

He was still pacing his room when the creaking of the 
door stopped him. It was opening slowly and steadily 
and apparently with extreme caution. In another 
moment Marge O’Doone stood inside. He had not seen 
her face so white before. Her eyes were big and glowing 
darkly—pools of quivering fear, of wild and imploring 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 243 

supplication. She ran to him, and clung to him with her 
hands at his shoulders, her face close to his. 

“Sakewawin —dear Sakewamn —we must go; we must 
hurry—to-night! ” 

She was trembling, fairly shivering against him, with 
one hand touching his face now, and he put his arms about 
her gently. 

“What is it, child?” he whispered, his heart choking 
suddenly. “What has happened?” 

“We must run away! We must hurry!” 

At the touch of his arms she had relaxed against his 
breast. The last of her courage seemed gone. She was 
limp, and terrified, and was looking up at him in such a 
strange way that he was filled with alarm. 

*1 didn’t tell him anything,” she whispered, as if afraid 
he would not believe her. “I didn’t tell him you weren’t 
that man—Mac—McKenna. He heard you and Brokaw 
go when you passed my room. Then he went to the men. 
I followed—and listened. I heard him telling them about 
you—that you were a spy—that you belonged to the pro¬ 
vincial police . . .” 

A sound in the hall interrupted her. She grew suddenly 
tense in his arms, then slipped from them and ran noise¬ 
lessly to the door. There were shuffling steps outside, s 
thick voice growling unintelligibly. The sounds passed. 
Marge O’Doone was whiter still when she faced David. 

“Hauck—and Brokaw!” She stood there, with her 
back to the door. “We must hurry, Sakewawin . We 
must go—to-night!” 

David looked at her. A spy? Police? Quite the first 
thing for Hauck to suspect, of course. That law of self* 


250 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


preservation again—the same law that would compel them 
to give up the girl to him to-morrow. He found himself 
smiling at his frightened little companion, backed there 
against the door, white as death. His calmness did not 
reassure her. 

“He said—you were a spy,” she repeated, as if he must 
understand what that meant. “They wanted to follow 
you to Brokaw’s cabin—and—and kill you!” 

This was coming to the bottom of her fear with a ven¬ 
geance. It sent a mild sort of a shiver through him, and 
corroborated with rather disturbing emphasis what he had 
seen in the men’s faces as he passed among them. 

“ And Hauck wouldn’t let them? Was that it?” he asked. 

She nodded, clutching a hand at her throat. 

“He told them to do nothing until he saw Brokaw. He 
wanted to be certain. And then . . .” 

His amazing and smiling composure seemed to choke 
back the words on her lips. 

“You must return to your room, Marge,” he said 
quickly. “Hauck has now seen Brokaw and there will be 
no trouble such as you fear. I can promise you that. To¬ 
morrow we will leave the Nest openly—and with Hauck’s 
and Brokaw’s permission. But should they find you here 
now—in my room—I am quite sure we should have im¬ 
mediate trouble on our hands. I’ve a great deal to tell 
you—much that will make you glad, but I half expect 
another visit from Hauck, and you must hurry to your 
room.” 

He opened the door slightly, and listened. 

“Good-night,” he whispered, putting a hand for an 
instant to her hair. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 261 

“Good night, Sakewawin 

She hesitated for just a moment at the door, and then, 
with the faintest sobbing breath, was gone. What won¬ 
derful eyes she had! How they had looked at him in that 
last moment! David’s fingers were trembling a little as 
he locked his door. There was a small mirror on the table 
and he held it up to look at himself. He regarded his re¬ 
flection with grim amusement. He was not beautiful. 
The scrub of blond beard on his face gave him rather an 
outlawish appearance. And the gray hair over his temples 
had grown quite conspicuous of late, quite conspicuous 
Indeed. Heredity? Perhaps—but it was confoundedly 
remindful of the fact that he was thirty-eight! 

He went to bed, after placing the table against the door, 
and his automatic under his pillow—absurd and unneces¬ 
sary details of caution, he assured himself. And while 
Marge O’Doone sat awake close to the door of her room 
all night, with a little rifle that had belonged to Nisikoos 
across her lap, David slept soundly in the amazing con¬ 
fidence and philosophy of that perilous age—thirty-eight! 


CHAPTER XXHI 


A SERIES of sounds that came to him at first like the 
booming of distant cannon roused David from his 
slumber. He awoke to find broad day in his room 
and a knocking at his door. He began to dress, calling out 
that he would open it in a moment, and was careful to 
place the automatic in his pocket before he lifted the table 
without a sound to its former position in the room. When 
lie flung open the door he was surprised to find Brokaw 
standing there instead of Hauck. It was not the BrokaW 
of last night. A few hours had produced a remarkable 
change in the man. One would not have thought that he 
bad been recently drunk. He was grinning and holding 
out one of his huge hands as he looked into David’s face. 

“Morning, Raine,” he greeted affably. “Hauck sent 
me to wake you up for the fun. You’ve got just time to 
swallow your breakfast before we put on the big scrap— 
the scrap I told you about last night, when I was drunk. 
Head-over-heels drunk, wasn’t I? Took you for a friend 
I knew. Funny. You don’t look a dam’ bit like him!” 

David shook hands with him. In his first astonishment 
Brokaw’s manner appeared to him to be quite sincere, and 
bis voice to be filled with apology. This impression was gone 
before he had dropped his hand, and he knew why Hauck’s 
partner had come. It was to get a good look at him—to 
make sure that he was not McKenna; and it was also with 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE m 

the strategic purpose of removing whatever suspicions 
David might have by an outward show of friendship. For 
this last bit of work Brokaw was crudely out of place 
His eyes, like a bad dog’s, could not conceal what lay bev 
hind them—hatred, a deep and intense desire to grip the 
throat of this man who had tricked him; and his grin was 
forced, with a subdued sort of malevolence about it. 
David smiled back. 

“You were drunk,” he said. “I had a deuce of a time 
trying to make you understand that I wasn’t McKenna.” 

That amazing lie seemed for a moment to daze Brokaw. 
David realized the audacity of it, and knew that Brokaw 
would remember too well what had happened to believe 
him. Its effect was what he was after, and if he had had a 
doubt as to the motive of the other’s visit that doubt dis¬ 
appeared almost as quickly as he had spoken. The grin 
went out of Brokaw’s face, his jaws tightened, the red 
came nearer to the surface in the bloodshot eyes. As 
plainly as if he were giving voice to hi3 thought he was 
saying: “You lie!” But he kept back the words, and as 
David noted carelessly the slow clenching and unclenching 
of his hands, he believed that Hauck was not very far 
away, and that it was his warning and the fact that he was 
possibly listening to them, that restrained Brokaw from 
betraying himself completely. As it was, the grin returned 
slowly into his face. 

“Hauck says he’s sorry he couldn’t have breakfast with 
you,” he said. “Couldn’t wait any longer. The Indian’* 
going to bring your breakfast here. You’d better hurry 
if you want to see the fun.” 

With this he turned and walked heavily toward the 


254 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

end of the hall. David glanced across at the door of 
Marge’s room. It was closed. Then he looked at his 
watch. It was almost nine o’clock! He felt like swearing 
as he thought of what he had missed—that breakfast with 
Hauck and the Girl. He would undoubtedly have had an 
opportunity of seeing Hauck alone for a little while—a 
quarter of an hour would have been enough; or he could 
have settled the whole matter in Marge’s presence. He 
wondered where she was now. In her room? 

Approaching footsteps caused him to draw back deeper 
into his own and a moment later his promised breakfast 
appeared, carried on a big Company keyakun , by an old 
Indian woman—undoubtedly the woman that Marge 
had told him about. She placed the huge plate on his 
table and withdrew without either looking at him or utter¬ 
ing a sound. He ate hurriedly, and finished dressing him¬ 
self after that. It was a quarter after nine when he went 
into the hall. In passing Marge’s door he knocked. 
There came no response from within. He turned and 
passed through the big room in which he had seen so many 
unfriendly faces the night before. It was empty now. 
The stillness of the place began to fill him with uneasiness, 
and he hurried out into the day. A low tumult of sound 
was in the air, unintelligible and yet thrilling. A dozen 
steps brought him to the end of the building and he looked 
toward the cage. For a space after that he spood without 
moving, filled with a sudden, sickening horror as he realized 
his helplessness in this moment. If he had not overslept, 
if he had talked with Hauck, he might have prevented this 
monstrous thing that was happening—he might have 
demanded that Tara be a part of their bargain. It was 




THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 255 

too late now. An excited and yet strangely quiet crowd 
was gathered about the cage—a crowd so tense and mo¬ 
tionless that he knew the battle was on. A low, growling 
roar came to him, and again he heard that tumult of 
human voices, like a great gasp rising spontaneously out of 
half a hundred throats, and in response to the sound he 
gave a sudden cry of rage. Tara was already battling 
for his life—Tara, that great, big-souled brute who had 
learned to follow his little mistress like a protecting dog, 
and who had accepted him as a friend—Tara, grown soft 
and lazy and unwarlike because of his voluntary slavery, 
had been offered to the sacrifice which Brokaw had told 
him was inevitable! 

And the Girl! Where was she? He was unconscious 
of the fact that his hand was gripping hard at the automatic 
in his pocket. For a space his brain burned red, seething 
with a physical passion, a consuming anger which, in all 
his life, had never been roused so terrifically within him. 
He rushed forward and took his place in the thin circle of 
watching men. He did not look at their faces. He did 
not know whether he stood next to white men or Indians. 
He did not see the blaze in their eyes, the joyous trembling 
of their bodies, their silent, savage exultation in the 
spectacle. 

He was looking at the cage. 

It was 20 feet square—built of small trees almost a foot 
tn diameter, with 18-inch spaces between—and out of it 
came a sickening, grinding smash of jaws. The two beasts 
were down, a ton of flesh and bone, in what seemed to him 
to be a death embrace. For a moment he could not tell 
which was Tara and which was Brokaw’s grizzly. They 


£56 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


separated in that same breath, gained their feet* and 
stood facing each other. They must have been fighting foi 
some minutes. Tara’s jaws were foaming with blood 
and out of the throat of Brokaw’s bear there rolled a 
rumbling, snarling roar that was like the deep-chested 
bellow of an angry bull. With that roar they came to¬ 
gether again, Tara waiting stolidly and with panting 
sides for the rush of his enemy. It was hard for David 
to see what was happening in that twisting contortion 
of huge bodies, but as they rolled heavily to one side 
he saw a great red splash of blood w T here they had lain* 
It looked as if some one had poured it there out of a 
pail. 

Suddenly a hand fell on his shoulder. He looked round. 
Brokaw was leering at him. 

“Great scrap, eh?” 

There was a look in his red face that revealed the pitiless 
savagery of a cat. David’s clenched hand was as hard as 
iron and his brain was filled with a wild desire to strike. 
He fought to hold himself in. 

“Where is—the Girl?” he demanded. 

Brokaw’s face revealed his hatred now, the taunting 
triumph of his power over this man who was a spy. He 
bared his yellow teeth in an exultant grin. 

“Tricked her,” he snarled. “Tricked her—like you 
tricked me! Got the Indian woman to steal her clothes, 
an’ she’s up there in her room—alone— an ’ naked! An' 
she won’t have any clothes until I say so, for she’s mine— 
body and soul . . .” 

David’s clenched hand shot out, and in his blow was 
not alone the cumulated force of all his years of training 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 257 

but also of the one great impulse he had ever had to kill. 
In that instant he wanted to strike a man dead—a red" 
visaged monster, a fiend; and his blow sent Brokaw’s huge 
body reeling backward, his head twisted as if his neck 
had been broken. He had not time to see what hap¬ 
pened after that blow. He did not see Brokaw fall. A 
piercing interruption—a scream that startled every drop 
of blood in his body—turned him toward the cage. Ten 
paces from him, standing at the inner edge of that circle 
of astounded and petrified men, was the Girl! At first 
he thought she was standing naked there—naked under the 
staring eyes of the fiends about him. Her white arms 
gleamed bare, her shoulders and breast were bare, her 
ddm, satiny body was naked to the waist, about which she 
had drawn tightly—as if in a wild panic of haste—an old 
and ragged skirt! It was the Indian woman’s skirt. He 
©aught the glitter of beads on it, and for a moment he 
scared with the others, unable to move or cry out her name. 
And then a breath of wind flung back her hair and he saw 
her face the colour of marble. She was like a piece of 
glistening statuary, without a quiver of life that his eyes 
could see, without a movement, without a breath. Only 
her hair moved, stirred by the air, flooded by the sun, 
floating about her shoulders and down her bare back in a 
lucent cloud of red and gold fires—and out of this she was 
staring at the cage, stunned into that lifeless and un¬ 
breathing posture of horror by what she saw. David did 
not follow her eyes. He heard the growl and roar and 
dashing jaws of the fighting beasts; they were down again; 
one of the 6-inch trees that formed the bars of the cage 
snapped like a walking stick as their great bodies lurched 


258 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


against it; the earth shook, the very air seemed to tremble 
with the terrific force of the struggle—and only the Girl 
was looking at that struggle. Every eye was on her now, 
and David sprang suddenly forth from the circle of men, 
calling her name. 

Ten paces separated them; half that distance lay be¬ 
tween the Girl and the cage. With the swiftness of an 
arrow sprung from the bow she had leaped into life and 
crossed that space. In a tenth part of a second David 
would have been at her side. He was that tenth of a 
second too late. A gleaming shaft, she had passed between 
the bars and a tumult of horrified voices rose above the 
roar of battle as the girl sprang at the beasts with her naked 
hands. 

Her voice came to David in a scream. 

“ Tara—Tara—Tara-” 

His brain reeled when he saw her down—down!—with 
her little fists pummelling at a great, shaggy head; and in 
him there was the sickening weakness of a drunken man as 
he squeezed through that 18-inch aperture and almost fell 
at her side. He did not know that he had drawn his auto¬ 
matic; he scarcely realized that as fast as his fingers could 
press the trigger he was firing shot after shot, with the 
muzzle of his pistol so close to the head of Tara’s enemy 
that the reports of the weapon were deadened as if muffled 
under a thick blanket. It was a heavy weapon. A 
stream of lead burned its way into the grizzly’s brain. 
There were eleven shots and he fired them all in that wild, 
blood-red frenzy; and when he stood up he had the girl 
close in his arms, her naked breast throbbing pantingly 
against him. The clasp of his hands against her warm 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 259 

flesh cleared his head, and while Tara was rending at 
the throat of his dying foe, David drew her swiftly out 
of the cage and flung about her the light jacket he had 
worn. 

“Go to your room,” he said. “Tara is safe. I will 
see that no harm comes to him now.” 

The cordon of men separated for them as he led her 
through. The crowd was so silent that they could hear 
Tara’s low throat-growling. And then, breaking that 
silence in a savage cry, came Brokaw’s voice. 

“Stop!” 

He faced them, huge, terrible, quivering with rage. A 
step behind him was Hauck, and there was no longer in his 
face an effort to conceal his murderous intentions. Close 
behind Hauck there gathered quickly his white-faced 
whisky-mongers like a pack of wolves waiting for a lead- 
cry. David expected that cry to come from Brokaw. 
The Girl expected it, and she clung to David’s shoulders, 
her bloodless face turned to the danger. 

It was Brokaw who gave the signal to the men. 

“Clear out the cage!” he bellowed. “This damned 
spy has killed my bear and he’s got to fight me! Do you 
understand? Clear out the cage! ” 

He thrust his head and bull shoulders forward until his 
foul, hot breath touched their faces, and his red neck was 
swollen like the neck of a cobra with the passion of his 
jealousy and hatred. 

“And in that fight—I’m going to kill you!” he 
hissed. 

It was Hauck who put his hands on the Girl. 

“Go with him,” whispered David, as her arms tightened 


£60 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


about his shoulders. “You must go with him. Marge— 
if I am to have a chance! ” 

Her face was against him. She was talking, low T , swiftly, 
for his ears alone-—with Hauck already beginning to pull 
her away. 

“ I will go to the house. When you see me at that win¬ 
dow, fall on your face. I have a rifle—I will shoot him 
dead—from the window . . 

Perhaps Hauck heard. David wondered as he caught 
the glitter in his eyes when he drew the Girl away. He 
heard the crash of the big gate to the cage, and Tara 
ambled out and took his way slowly and limpingly toward 
the edge of the forest. When he saw the Girl again, he 
was standing in the centre of the cage, his feet in a pool 
of blood that smeared the ground. She was struggling 
with Hauck, struggling to break from him and get to the 
house. And now he knew that Hauck had heard, and that 
he would hold her there, and that her eyes would be cm 
him while Brokaw was killing him. For he knew that 
Brokaw would fight to kill. It would not be a square 
fight. It would be murder—if the chance came Brokaw’s 
way. The thought did not frighten him. He was growing 
strangely calm in these moments. He realized the ad¬ 
vantage of being unencumbered, and he stripped off his 
shirt, and tightened his belt. And then Brokaw entered. 
The giant had stripped himself to the waist, and he stood 
for a moment looking at David, a monster with the lust of 
murder in his eyes. It was frightfully unequal—this 
combat. David felt it, he was blind if he did not see it, 
and yet he was still unafraid. A great silence fell. Cut¬ 
ting it like a knife came the Girl’s voice: 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 261 


“Sakewawin—Sakewamn . . .” 

A brutish growl rose out of Brokaw’s chest. He had 
heard that cry, and it stung him like an asp. 

“To-night, she will be with me,” he taunted David, and 
lowered his head for battle. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


D AVID no longer saw the horde of faces beyond the 
thick bars of the cage. His last glance, shot past 
the lowered head and hulking shoulders of his giant 
adversary, went to the Girl. He noticed that she had 
ceased her struggling and was looking toward him. After 
that his eyes never left Brokaw’s face. Until now it had 
not seemed that Brokaw was so big and so powerful, and, 
sizing up his enemy in that moment before the first rush, 
he realized that his one hope was to keep him from using 
his enormous strength at close quarters. A clinch would 
be fatal. In Brokaw’s arms he would be helpless; he was 
conscious of an unpleasant thrill as he thought how easy it 
would be for the other to break his back, or snap his neck, 
if he gave him the opportunity. Science! What would 
it avail him here, pitted against this mountain of flesh and 
bone that looked as though it might stand the beating of 
clubs without being conquered! His first blow returned 
his confidence, even if it had wavered slightly. Brokaw 
rushed. It was an easy attack to evade, and David’s arm 
shot out and his fist landed against Brokaw’s head with a 
sound that was like the crack of a whip. Hauck would 
have gone down under that blow like a log. Brokaw 
staggered. Even he realized that this was science—the 
skill of the game—and he was grinning as he advanced 
again. He could stand a hundred blows like that—a grim 
262 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 263 

and ferocious Achilles with but one vulnerable point, the 
end of his jaw. David waited and watched for his oppor¬ 
tunity as he gave ground slowly. Twice they circled 
about the blood-spattered arena, Brokaw following him 
with leisurely sureness, and yet delaying his attack as if in 
that steady retreat of his victim he saw torture too satisfying 
to put an end to at once. David measured his carelessness, 
the slow almost unguarded movement of his great body, 
his unpreparedness for a coup de main —and like a flash he 
launched himself forward with all the weight of his body 
behind his effort. 

It missed the other’s jaw by two inches, that catapeltic 
blow—striking him full in the mouth, breaking his yellow 
teeth and smashing his thick lips so that the blood sprang 
out in a spray over his hairy chest, and as his head rocked 
backward David followed with a swift left-hander, and a 
second time missed the jaw with his right—but drenched 
his clenched fist in blood. Out of Brokaw there came a 
cry that was like the low roar of a beast; a cry that was the 
most inhuman sound David had ever heard from a human 
throat, and in an instant he found himself battling not for 
victory, not for that opportunity he twice had missed, but 
for his life. Against that rushing bulk, enraged almost to 
madness, the ingenuity of his training alone saved him 
from immediate extinction. How many times he struck 
in the 120 seconds following his blow to Brokaw’s mouth 
he could never have told. He was red with Brokaw’s 
blood. His face was warm with it. llis hands were as if 
painted, so often did they reach with right and left to 
Brokaw’s gory visage. It was like striking at a monstrous 
thing without the sense of hurt, a fiend that had no brain 


264 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

that blows could sicken, a body that was not a body but 
an enormity that had strangely taken human form. Bro- 
kaw had struck him once—only once—in those two min¬ 
utes, but blows were not what he feared now. He was 
beating himself to pieces, literally beating himself to 
pieces as a ship might have hammered itself against a reef, 
and fighting with every breath to keep himself out of the 
fatal clinch. His efforts were costing him more than they 
were costing his antagonist. Twice he had reached his 
jaw, twice Brokaw’s head had rocked back on his shoulders 
—and then he was there again, closing in on him, grinning* 
dripping red to the soles of his feet, unconquerable. Was 
there no fairness out there beyond the bars of the cage? 
Were they all like the man he was fighting—devils? An 
intermission—only half a minute. Enough to give him a 
chance. The slow, invincible beast he was hammering 
almost had him as his thoughts wandered. He only half 
fended the sledge-like blow that came straight for his face. 
He ducked, swung up his guard like lightning, and was 
saved from death by a miracle. That blow would have 
crushed in his face—killed him. He knew it. Brokaw’s 
huge fist landed against the side of his head and grazed off 
like a bullet that had struck the slanting surface of a rock. 
Yet the force of it was sufficient to send him crashing 
against the bars—and down. 

In that moment he thanked God for Brokaw’s slowness. 
He had a clear recollection afterward of almost having 
spoken the words as he lay dazed and helpless for an in¬ 
finitesimal space of time. He expected Brokaw to end it 
there. But Brokaw stood mopping the blood from his face, 
as if partly blinded by it, while from beyond the cage there 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 265 

came a swiftly growing rumble of voices. He heard a 
scream. It was the scream—the agonized cry—of the 
Girl, that brought him to his feet while Brokaw was still 
wiping the hot flow from his dripping jaw. It was that 
cry that cleared his brain, that called out to him in its 
despair that he must win, that all was lost for her as well as 
for himself if he was vanquished—for more positively 
than at any other time during the fight he felt now that 
defeat would mean death. It had come to him definitely 
in the savage outcry of joy when he was down. There 
was to be no mercy. He had read the ominous decree. 
And Brokaw . . . 

He was like a madman as he came toward him again. 
There was no longer the leer on his face. There was in his 
battered and swollen countenance but one emotion. 
Blood and hurt could not hide it. It blazed like fires in 
his half-closed eyes. It was the desire to kill. The 
passion which quenches itself in the taking of life, and 
every fibre in David’s brain rose to meet it. He knew that 
it was no longer a matter of blows on his part—it was like 
the David of old facing Goliath with his bare hands. 
Curiously the thought of Goliath came to him in these 
flashing moments. Here, too, there must be trickery, 
something unexpected, a deadly strafe gem, and his brain 
must work out his salvation quickly. Another two or 
three minutes and it would be over one way or the other. 
He made his decision. The tricks of his own art were in¬ 
adequate, but there was still one hope—one last chance. 
It was the so-called “knee-break” of the bush country, a 
horrible thing, he had thought, when Father Roland had 
taught it to him. “Break your opponent's knees,” the 


266 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


Missioner had said, “ and you’ve got him.” He had never 
practised it. But he knew the method, and he remem¬ 
bered the Little Missioner’s words—“when he’s straight 
facing you, with all your weight, like a cannon ball!” 
And suddenly he shot himself out like that, as Brokaw was 
about to rush upon him—a hundred and sixty pounds of 
solid flesh and bone against the joints of Brokaw’s knees 1 

The shock dazed him. There was a sharp pain in his 
left shoulder, and with that shock and pain he was con¬ 
scious of a terrible cry as Brokaw crashed over him. He 
was on his feet when Brokaw was on his knees. Whether 
or not they were really broken he could not tell. With 
all the strength in his body he sent his right again and 
again to the bleeding jaw of his enemy. Brokaw reached 
up and caught him in his huge arms, but that jaw was 
there, unprotected, and David battered it as he might 
have battered a rock with a hammer. A gasping cry rose 
out of the giant’s throat, his head sank backward—and 
through a red fury, through blood that spattered up into 
his face, David continued to strike until the arms relaxed 
about him, and with a choking gurgle of blood in his throat, 
Brokaw dropped back limply, as if dead. 

And then David looked again beyond the bars* The 
staring faces had drawn nearer to the cage, bewildered, 
stupefied, disbelieving, like the faces of stone images. 
For a space it was so quiet that it seemed to him they must 
hear his panting breath and the choking gurgle that was 
still in Brokaw’s throat. The victor! He flung back his 
shoulders and held up his head, though he had great desire 
to stagger against one of the bars and rest. He could 
see the Girl and Hauck—and now the girl was standing 





THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 267 

alone, looking at him. She had seen him! She had seen 
him beat that giant beast, and a great pride rose in his 
breast and spread in a joyous light over his bloody face. 
Suddenly he lifted his hand and waved it at her. In a 
flash she was coming to him. She would have broken 
her way through the cordon of men, but Hauck stopped 
her. He had seen Hauck talking swiftly to two of the 
white men. And now Hauck caught the girl and held her 
back. David knew that he was dripping red and he was 
glad that she came no nearer. Hauck was telling her to 
go to the house, and David nodded, and with a movement 
of his hand made her understand that she must obey. 
Not until he saw her going did he pick up his shirt and step 
out among the men. Three or four of the whites went to 
Brokaw. The rest stared at him still in that amazed 
silence as he passed among them. He nodded and 
smiled at them, as though beating Brokaw had not been 
such a terrible task after all. He noticed there was 
scarcely an expression in the faces of the Indians. And 
then he found himself face to face with Hauck, and a step 
or two behind Hauck were the two white men he had 
talked to so hurriedly. One of them was the man David 
had brushed against in passing through the big room. 
There was a grin in his face now. There was a grin in 
Hauck’s face, and a grin in the face of the third man, 
and to David’s astonishment Hauck thrust out his 
hand. 

“Shake, Raine! I’d have bet a thousand to fifty you 
were loser, but there wasn’t a dollar going your way. A 
great fight!" 

He turned to the other two. 


268 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“Take Raine to his room, boys. Help ’im wash up 
I've got to see to Brokaw—an’ this crowd.” 

David protested. He was all right. He needed only 
water and soap, both of which were in his room, but Hauck 
insisted that it wasn’t square, and wouldn’t look right, if 
he didn’t have friends as well as Brokaw. Brokaw had 
forced the affair so suddenly that none of them had had 
time or thought to speak an encouraging or friendly word 
before the fight. Langdon and Henry would go with him 
now. He walked between the two to the Nest, and entered 
his room with them. Langdon, the tall man who had 
looked hatred at him last night, poured water into a tin 
basin while Henry, the smaller man, closed his door. 
They appeared quite companionable, especially Langdon. 

“Didn’t like you last night,” he confessed frankly. 
“Thought you was one of them damned police, running 
your nose into our business mebby.” 

He stood beside David, with the pail of water in his 
hand, and as David bent over the basin Henry was behind 
him. He had drawn something from his pocket, and was 
edging up close. As David dipped his hands in the water 
he looked up into Langdon’s face, and he saw there a 
strange and unexpected change—that deadly malignity 
of last night. In that moment the object in Henry’s hand 
fell with terrific force on his head and he crumpled down 
over the basin. He was conscious of a single agonizing 
pain, like a hot iron thrust suddenly through him, and 
then a great and engulfing pit of darkness closed about him. 


CHAPTER XXV 


I N THAT chaotic night in which he was drifting, David 
experienced neither pain nor very much of the sense 
of life. And yet, without seeing or feeling, he seemed 
to be living. All was dead within him but that last 
consciousness, which is almost the spirit; he might have 
been dreaming, and minutes, hours, or even years might 
have passed in that dream. For a long time he seemed tc 
be: sinking through the blackness; and then something 
gt/pped him, without jar or shock, and he was rising. 
He could hear nothing at first. There was a vast silence 
about him, a silence as deep and unbroken as the abysmal 
pit in which he seemed to be floating. After that he felt 
himself swaying and rocking, as though tossed gently on 
the billows of a sea. This was the first thought that took 
shape in his struggling brain—he was at sea; he was on a 
ship in the heart of a black night, and he was alone. He 
tried to call out, but his tongue seemed gone. It seemed 
a long time before day broke, and then it was strange day. 
Little needles of light pricked his eyes; silver strings shot 
like flashes of wave-like lightning through the darkness, 
and he began to feel, and to hear. A dozen hands seemed 
holding him down until he could move neither arms nor 
feet. He heard voices. There appeared to be many of 
them at first, an unintelligible rumble of voices, and then 
very swiftly they became two. 



£70 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


He opened his eyes. The first thing that he observed 
was a bar of sunlight against the eastern wall of his room. 
That bit of sunlight was like a magnet thrown there to 
reassemble the faculties that had drifted away from him 
in the dark night of his unconsciousness. It tried to tell 
him, first of all, that it was afternoon—quite late in the 
afternoon. He would have sensed that fact in another 
moment or two, but something came between him and the 
radiance flung by the westward slant of the sun. It was a 
face, two faces—first Hauck’s and then Brokaw’s! Yes, 
Brokaw was there! Staring down at him. A fiend still. 
And almost unrecognizable. He was no longer stripped, 
and he was no longer bloody. His countenance was 
swollen; his lips were raw, one eye was closed—but the 
other gleamed like a devil’s. David tried to sit up. He 
managed with an effort, and balanced himself on the edge 
of his cot. His head was dizzy, and he felt clumsy and 
helpless as a stuffed bag. His hands were tied behind 
him, and his feet were bound. He thought Hauck looked 
like an exultant gargoyle as he stood there with a horrible 
grin on his face, and Brokaw . . . 

It was Brokaw who bent over him, his thick fingers 
knotting, his open eyes fairly livid. 

“I’m glad you ain’t dead, Raine.” 

His voice was husky, muffled by the swollen thickness 
of his battered lips. 

“Thanks,” said David. The dizziness was leaving him, 
but there was a steady pain in his head. He tried to smile. 
“Thanks!” It was rather idiotic of him to say that. 
Brokaw’s hands were moving slowly toward his throat 
when Hauck drew him back. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 271 

“I won’t touch him—not now,” he growled. “But 
to-night—oh, God!” 

His knuckles snapped. 

“You—liar! You—spy! You—sneak!” he cursed 
through his broken teeth. David saw where they had 
been—a cavity in that cruel, battered mouth. “And you 
think, after that . . .” 

Again Hauck tried to draw him away. Brokaw flung 
off his hands angrily. 

“I won’t touch him—but I’ll tell him, Hauck! The 
devil take me body and soul if I don’t! I want him to 
know . . 

“You’re a fool!” cried Hauck. “Stop, or by Heaven! 

Brokaw opened his mouth and laughed, and David saw 
\he havoc of his blows. 

“You’ll do whaty Hauck? Nothing—that’s what you’ll 
do! Ain’t I told him you killed that napo from Mac- 
Pherson? Ain’t I told him enough to set us both swing¬ 
ing?” He bent over David until his breath struck his 
face. “I’m glad you didn’t die, Raine,” he repeated, 
“because I want to see you when you shuffle off. We’re 
only waiting for the Indians to go. Old Wapi starts with 
his tribe at sunset. I’m sorry, but we can’t get the heathen 
away any earlier because he says it’s good luck to start a 
journey at sunset in the moulting moon. You’ll start 
yours a little later—as soon as they’re out of sound of a 
rifle shot. You can’t trust Indians, eh? You made a hit 
with old Wapi, and it wouldn’t do to let him know we’re 
going to send you where you sent my bear. Eh—would 
it?” 


272 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“You mean—you’re going to murder me?” said David 

“If standing you up against a tree and putting a bullet ( 
through your heart is murder—yes,” gloated Brokaw. 

“Murder—” repeated David. 

He seemed powerless to say more than that. An over 
whelming dizziness was creeping over him, the pain was 
splitting his head, and he swayed backward. He fought to 
recover himself, to hold himself up, but that returning 
sickness reached from his brain to the pit of his stomach, 
and with a groan he sank face downward on the cot. 
Brokaw was still talking, but he could no longer under¬ 
stand his words. He heard Hauck’s sharp voice, the# 
retreating footsteps, the opening and closing of the door- 
fighting all the time to keep himself from falling off into 
that black and bottomless pit again. It was many minutes 
before he drew himself to a sitting posture on the edge of 
his cot, this time slowly and guardedly, so that he would 
not rouse the pain in his head. It was there. He could 
feel it burning steadily and deeply, like one of his old-time 
headaches. 

The bar of sunlight was gone from the wall, and through 
the one small window in the west end of his room he saw 
the fading light of day outside. It was morning when he 
had fought Brokaw; it was now almost night. The wash¬ 
basin was where it had fallen when Henry struck him. 
He saw a red stain on the floor where he must have dropped. 
Then again he looked at the window. It was rather oddly 
out of place, so high up that one could not look in from the 
outside—a rectangular slit to let in light, and so narrow 
that a man could not have wormed his way through it. 
He had seen nothing particularly significant in its location 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 273 

last night, or this morning, but now its meaning struck 
him as forcibly as that of the pieces of babicke thong that 
bound his wrists and ankles. A guest might be housed 
in this room without suspicion and at the turn of a key 
be made a prisoner. There was no way of escape unless 
one broke down the heavy door or cut through the log 
walls. 

Gradually he was overcoming his sensation of sickness. 
His head was clearing, and he began to breathe more 
deeply. He tried to move his cramped arms. They were 
without feeling, lifeless weights hung to his shoulders. 
With an effort he thrust out his feet. And then—through 
the window—there came to him a low, thrilling sound. 

It was the muffled boom, boom, boom of a tom-tom. 

Wapi and his Indians were going, and he heard now a 
weird and growing chant, a savage paean to the wild gods 
of the Moulting Moon. A gasp rose in his throat. It was 
almost a cry. His last hope was going—with Wajpi and 
his tribe! Would they help him if they knew? If he 
Shouted? If he shrieked for them through that open 
window? It was a mad thought, an impossible thought, 
but it set his heart throbbing for a moment. And then— 
Suddenly—it seemed to stand still. A key rattled, turned; 
the door opened—and Marge O’Doone stood before him! 

She was panting—sobbing, as if she had been running a 
long distance. She made no effort to speak, but dropped 
at his feet and began sawing at the caribou babicke with a 
knife. She had come prepared with that knife! He felt 
the bonds snap, and before either had spoken she was at 
his back, and his hands were free. They were like lead. 
She dropped the knife then, and her hands were at his face 


274 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


—-dark with dry stain of blood, and over and over again 
she was calling him by the name she had given him— 
Sakewawin, And then the tribal chant of Wapi and his 
people grew nearer and louder as they passed into the for¬ 
est, and with a choking cry the Girl drew back from 
David and stood facing him. 

“I—must hurry,” she said, swiftly. “Listen! They 
are going! Hauck or Brokaw will go as far as the lake with 
Wapi, and the one who does not go will return here. See, 
Sakewawin —I have brought you a knife! When he comes 
—you must kill him! ” 

The chanting voices had passed. The paean was 
dying away in the direction of the forest. 

He did not interrupt her. With hand clutched at her 
breast she went on. 

“I waited—until all were out there. They kept me in 
my room and left Marcee—the old Indian woman—to 
watch me. When they were all out to see Wapi off, I 
struck her over the head with the end of Nisikoos’ rifle. 
Maybe she is dead. Tara is out there. I know where to 
find him when it is dark. I will make up a pack and within 
an hour we must go. If Hauck comes to your room before 
then, or Brokaw, kill him with the knife, Sakewawin! If 
you don’t—they will kill you!” 

Her voice broke in a gasp that was like a sob. He 
struggled to rise; stood swaying before her, his legs un¬ 
steady as stilts under him. 

“My gun, Marge—my pistol!” he demanded, trying to 
reach out his arms. “If I had them now . . 

“They must have taken them,” she interrupted. “But 
I have Nisikoos’ rifle, Sakewawin! Oh—I must hurry f 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 275 

They won’t come to my room, and Marcee is perhaps dead. 
As soon as it is dark I will unlock your door. And if one of 
them comes before then, you must kill him! You must! 
You must!” 

She backed to the door, and now she opened it, and was 
gone. A key clicked in the lock again, he heard her swift 
footsteps in the hall, and a second door opened and closed. 

For a few minutes he stood without moving, a little 
dazed by the suddenness with which she had left him. 
She had not been in his room more than a minute or two. 
She had been terribly frightened, terribly afraid of dis¬ 
covery before her work was done. On the floor at his feet 
lay the knife. That was why she had come, that was what 
she had brought him! His blood began to tingle. He 
could feel it resuming its course through his numbed legs 
and arms, and he leaned over slowly, half afraid that he 
would lose his balance, and picked up the weapon. The 
chanting of Wapi and his people was only a distant mur¬ 
mur; through the high window came the sound of returning 
voices—voices of white men. 

There swept through him the wild thrill of the thought 
that once more the fight was up to him. Marge O’Doone 
had done her part. She had struck down the Indian 
woman Hauck had placed over her as a guard—had escaped 
from her room, unbound him, and put a knife into his 
hands. The rest was his fight. How long before Brokaw 
or Hauck would come? Would they give him time to get 
the blood running through his body again? Time to gain 
strength to use his freedom—and the knife? He began 
walking slowly across the room, pumping his arms up and 
down. His strength returned quickly. He went to the 


576 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


pail of water and drank deeply with a consuming thirst. 
The water refreshed him, and he paced back and forth 
more and more swiftly, until he was breathing steadily and 
he could harden his muscles and knot his fists. He looked 
at the knife. It was a horrible necessity—the burying of that 
steel in a man’s back, or his heart! Was there no other 
way, he wondered? He began searching the room. Why 
hadn’t Marge brought him a club instead of a knife, or at 
least a club along with the knife? To club a man down,, 
even when he was intent on murder, wasn’t like letting out 
his life in a gush of blood. 

His eyes rested on the table, and in a moment he had 
turned it over and was wrenching at one of the wooden 
legs. It broke off with a sharp snap, and he held in his 
hand a weapon possessing many advantages over the knife 
The latter he thrust into his belt with the handle just back 
of his hip. Then he waited. 

It was not for long. The western mountains had shut 
out the last reflections of the sun. Gloom was beginning 
to fill his room, and he numbered the minutes as he stood 
with his ear close to the door, listening for a step, hopeful 
that it would be the Girl’s and not Hauck’s or Brokaw’s. 
At last the step came, advancing from the end of the hall. 
It was a heavy step, and he drew a deep breath and 
gripped the club. His heart gave a sudden, mighty throb 
as the step stopped at his door. It was not pleasant to 
think of what he was about to do, and yet he realized, as 
he heard the key in the lock, that it was a grim and 
terrible necessity. He was thankful there was only one. 
He would not strike too hard—not in this cowardly way— 
from ambush. Just enough to do the business sufficiently 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 277 

well. It would be easy—quite. He raised his club in the 
thickening dusk, and held his breath. 

The door opened, and Hauck entered, and stood with 
his back to David. Horrible! Strike a man like that—• 
and with a club! If he could use his hands, choke him, 
give him at least a quarter chance. But it had to be done. 
It was a sickening thing. Hauck went down without a 
groan—so silently, so lifelessly that David thought he had 
killed him. He knelt beside him for a few seconds and 
made sure that his heart was beating before he rose to his 
feet. He looked out into the hall. The lamps had not 
been lighted—probably that was one of the old Indian 
woman’s duties. From the big room came a sound of 
voices—and then, close to him, from the door across the 
way, there came a small trembling voice: 

“Hurry, Salcewaicin! Lock the door—and come!” 

For another instant he dropped on his knees at Hauck’s 
side. Yes it was there—in his pocket—a revolver! He 
possessed himself of the weapon with an exclamation of 
joy, locked the door, and ran across the hall. The Girl 
opened her door for him, and closed it behind him as he 
sprang into her room. The first object he noticed was the 
Indian woman. She was lying on a cot, and her black 
eyes were levelled at them like the eyes of a snake. She 
was trussed up so securely, and was gagged so thorough¬ 
ly that he could not restrain a laugh as he bent over her. 

“Splendid!” he cried softly. “You’re a little brick. 
Marge—you surely are! And now—what?” 

With his revolver in his hand, and the Girl trembling 
under his arm, he felt a ridiculous desire to shout out at 
the top of his voice to his enemies letting them know that 


278 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


lie was again ready to fight. In the gloom the Girl’s eyes 
shone like stars. 

“Who—was it?” she whispered. 

“Hauck.” 

“Then it was Brokaw who went with Wapi. Langdon 
and Henry went with him. It is less than two miles to 
the lake, and they will be returning soon. We must hurry! 
Look—it is growing dark!” 

She ran from his arms to the window and he followed 
her. 

“In—fifteen minutes—we will go, Sakewawin. Tara 
is out there in the edge of the spruce.” Her hand pinched 
his arm. “Did you—kill him?” she breathed. 

“No. I broke off a leg from the table and stunned 
him.” 

“I’m glad,” she said, and snuggled close to him shiver' 
ingly. “I’m glad, Sakewawin .” 

In the darkness that was gathering about them it was 
impossible for him not to take her in his arms. He held 
her close, bowing his head so that for an instant her warm 
face touched his own; and in those moments while they 
waited for the gloom to thicken he told her in a low voice 
what he had learned from Brokaw. She grew tense against 
him as he continued, and when he assured her he no longer 
had a doubt her mother was alive, and that she was the 
woman he had met on the coach, a cry rose out of her 
breast. She was about to speak when loud footsteps in the 
hall made her catch her breath, and her fingers clung more 
tightly at his shoulders. 

“It is time,” she whispered. “We must go!” 

She ran from him quickly and from under the cot where 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 279 

the Indian lay dragged forth a pack. He could not see 
'plainly what she was doing now. In a moment she had 
put a rifle in his hands. 

“It belonged to Nisikoos,” she said. “There are six 
shots in it, and here are all the cartridges I have.” 

He took them in his hand and counted them as he 
dropped them into his pocket. There were eleven in all, 
including the six in the chamber. “Thirty-twos,” he 
thought, as he seized them up with his fingers. “Good 
for partridges—and short range at men!” He said, 
aloud: “If we could get my rifle. Marge . . .” 

“They have taken it,” she told him again. “But we 
shall not need it. Salcewawin ,” she added, as if his voice 
had revealed to her the thought in his mind; “I know of a 
mountain that is all rock—not so far off as the one Tara 
and I climbed—and if we can reach that they will not be 
abk to trail us. If they should find us . . 

She was opening the window. 

“What then?” he asked. 

“Nisikoos once killed a bear with that gun,” she replied. 

The window was open, and she was waiting. They 
thrust out their heads and listened, and when he had as¬ 
sured himself that all was clear he dropped out the pack. 
He lifted Marge down then and followed her. As his feet 
struck the ground the slight shock sent a pain through his 
head that wrung a low cry from him, and for a moment he 
leaned with his back against the wall, almost overcome 
again by the sickening dizziness. It was not so dark that 
the Girl did not see the sudden change in him. Her eyes 
filled with alarm. 

“A little dizzy,” he explained, trying to smile at her. 


280 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“They gave me a pretty hard crack on the head. Marge. 
This air will set me right—soon.” 

He picked up the pack and followed her. In the edge of 
the spruce a hundred yards from the Nest, Tara had been 
lying all the afternoon, nursing his wounds. 

“I could see him from my window,” whispered Marge. 

She went straight to him and began talking to him in a 
low voice. Out of the darkness behind Tara came a 
growl. 

“Baree, by thunder!” muttered David in amazement. 
“He’s made up with the bear. Marge! What do you think 
of that?” 

At the sound of his voice Baree came to him and flat' 
tened himself at his feet. David laid a hand on his head. 

“Boy!” he whispered softly. “And they said you were 
an outlaw, and would join the wolves . . .” 

He saw the dark bulk of Tara rising out of the gloom, 
and the Girl was at his side. 

“We are ready, Sakewawin .” 

He spoke to her the thought that had been shaping 
itself in his mind. 

“Why wouldn’t it be better to join Wapi and his 
Indians?” he asked, remembering Brokaw’s words. 

“Because—they are afraid of Hauck,” she replied 
quickly. “There is but one way, Sakewawin —to follow a 
narrow trail Tara and I have made, close to the foot of the 
range, until we come to the rock mountain. Shall we risk 
the bundle on Tara’s back?” 

“It is light. I will carry it.” 

“Then give me your hand, Sakewawin .” 

There was again in her voice the joyous thrill of freedom 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O DOONE 281 

and of confidence; he could hear for a moment the wild 
throb of her heart in its exultation at their escape, and with 
her warm little hand she gripped his fingers firmly and 
guided him into a sea of darkness. The forest shut them 
in. Not a ray fell upon them from out of the pale sky 
where the stars were beginning to glimmer faintly. Be¬ 
hind them he could hear the heavy, padded footfall of the 
big grizzly, and he knew that Baree was very near. After 
a little the Girl said, still in a whisper: 

“Does your head hurt you now, Salcewamn ?” 

“A bit.” 

The trail was widening. It was quite smooth for a 
space, but black. 

She pressed his fingers. 

“I believe all you have told me,” she said, as if making 
a confession. “ After you came to me in the cage—and the 
fight—I believed. You must have loved me a great deal 
to risk all that for me.” 

“Yes, a great deal, my child,” he answered. 

Why did that dizziness persist in his head, he wondered? 
For a moment he felt as if he were falling. 

“A very great deal,” he added, trying to walk steadily 
at her side, his own voice sounding unreal and at a great 
distance from him. “You see—my child—I didn’t have 
anything to love but your picture . . .” 

What a fool he was to try and make himself heard 
above the roaring in his head! His words seemed to him 
whispers coming across a great space. And the bundle on 
his shoulders was like a crushing weight bearing him down! 
The voice at his side was growing fainter. It was saying 
things which afterward he could not remember, but he 


282 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


knew that it was talking about the woman he had said was 
her mother, and that he was answering it while weights of 
lead were dragging at his feet. Then suddenly, he had 
stepped over the edge of the world and was floating in that 
vast, black chaos again. The voice did not leave him. 
He could hear it sobbing, entreating him, urging him to do 
something which he could not understand; and when at 
last he did begin to comprehend it he knew also that he was 
no longer walking with weights at his feet and a burden on 
his shoulders, but was on the ground. His head was on 
her breast, and she was no longer speaking to him, but was 
crying like a child with a heart utterly broken. The 
deathly sickness was gone as quickly as it had stricken 
him, and he struggled upward, with her arms helping him. 

“You are hurt—hurt—” he heard her moaning. “If I 
can only get you on Tara, SaJcewawin , on Tara’s back—• 
there—a step . . .” and he knew that was what she had 
been saying over and over again, urging him to help him¬ 
self if he could, so that she could get him to Tara. He 
reached out his hand and buried it in the thick hair of the 
grizzly, and he tried to speak laughingly so that she would 
not know his fears. 

“One is often dizzy—like that—after a blow,” he said, 
“I guess—I can walk now.” 

“No, no, you must ride Tara,” she insisted. “You are 
hurt—and you must ride Tara, Sakewawin. You must!” 

She was lifting at his arms with all her strength, her 
breath hot and panting in his face, and Tara stood without 
moving a muscle of his giant body, as if he, too, were urging 
upon him in this dumb manner the necessity of obeying 
his mistress. Even then David would have remonstrated 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 283 

but he felt once more that appalling sickness creeping over 
him, and he raised himself slowly astride the grizzly’s 
broad back. The Girl picked up the bundle and rifle and 
Tara followed her through the darkness. To David the 
beast’s great back seemed a wonderfully safe and com¬ 
fortable place, and he leaned forward with his fingers 
clutched deeply in the long hair of the ruff about the bear’s 
bulking shoulders. 

The Girl called back to him softly: 

“You are all right, Sakewawin?” 

“Yes, it is so comfortable that I feel I may fall asleep,” 
he replied. 

Out in the starlight she would have seen his drooping 
head, and his words would have had a different meaning for 
her. He was fighting with himself desperately, and in his 
heart was a great fear. He must be badly hurt, he thought. 
There came to him a distorted but vivid vision of an 
Indian hurt in the head, whom he and Father Roland had 
tried to save. Without a surgeon it had been impossible. 
The Indian had died, and he had had those same spells of 
sickness, the sickness that was creeping over him again in 
spite of his efforts to fight it off. He had no very clear 
notion of the movement of Tara’s body under him, but he 
knew that he was holding on grimly, and that every little 
while the Girl called back to him, and he replied. Then 
came the time when he failed to answer, and for a space 
the rocking motion under him ceased and the Girl’s voice 
was very near to him. Afterward motion resumed. It 
seemed to him that he was travelling a great distance. 
Altogether too far without a halt for sleep, or at 
least a rest. He was conscious of a desire to voice pro- 


£84 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


test—and all the time his fingers were clasped in Tara’s 
mane in a sort of death grip. 

In her breast Marge's heart was beating like a hunted 
thing, and over and over again she sobbed out a broken 
prayer as she guided Tara and his burden through the 
night. From the forest into the starlit open; from the 
open into the thick gloom of forest again—into and out of 
starlight and darkness, following that trail down the valley. 
She was no longer thinking of the rock mountain, for it 
would be impossible now to climb over the range into the 
other valley. She was heading for a cabin. An old and 
abandoned cabin, where they could hide. She tried to 
tell David about it, many days after they had begun that 
journey it seemed to him. 

“Only a little longer, Sakewaivin” she cried, with her 
arm about him and her lips close to his bent head. “Only 
a little longer! They will not think to search for us there, 
and you can sleep—sleep . . .” 

Her voice drifted away from him like a low murmur in 
the tree tops—and his fingers still clung in that death-grip 
in the mane at Tara’s neck. 

And still many other days later they came to the cabin. 
It was amazing to him that the Girl should say: 

“We are only five miles from the Nest, SaJcewarvin, but 
they will not hunt for us here. They will think we have 
none farther—or over the mountains!” 

She was putting cold water to his face, and now that 
thtre was no longer the rolling motion under him he was 
not quite so dizzy. She had unrolled the bundle and had 
spread out a blanket, and when he stretched himself out on 
this a sens'" of vast relief came over him. In his confused 



THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 285 


consciousness two or three things stood out with rather 
odd clearness before he closed his eyes, and the last was a 
vision of the Girl’s face bending over him, and of her starry 
eyes looking down at him, and of her voice urging him 
gently: 

“Try to sleep, Sakewawin —try to sleep . . .” 

It was many hours later when he awoke. Hands seemed 
to be dragging him forcibly out of a place in which he 
was very comfortable, and which he did not want to leave, 
and a voice was accompanying the hands with an annoying 
insistency—a voice which was growing more and more 
familiar to him as his sleeping senses were roused. He 
opened his eyes. It was day, and Marge was on her knees 
at his side, tugging at his breast with her hands and staring 
wildly into his face. 

“Wake, Sakewawin —wake, wake!” he heard her crying. 
“Oh, my God, you must wake! Sakewawin—Sakewawin 
—they have found our trail—and I can see them coming 
up the valley!” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


S CARCELY had David sensed the Girl’s words of 
warning than he was on his feet. And now, when 
he saw her, he thanked God that his head was clear, 
and that he could fight. Even yesterday, when she had 
stood before the fighting bears, and he had fought Brokaw, 
she had not been whiter than she was now. Her face told 
him of their danger before he had seen it with his own, 
eyes. It told him that their peril was appallingly near 
and there was no chance of escaping it. He saw for the 
first time that his bed on the ground had been close to the 
wall of an old cabin which was in a little dip in the sloping 
face of the mountain. Before he could take in more, or 
discover a visible sign of their enemies. Marge had caught 
his hand and was drawing him to the end of the shack. 
She did not speak as she pointed downward. In the edge 
of the valley, just beginning the ascent, were eight or ten 
men. He could not determine their exact number for as 
he looked they were already disappearing under the face 
of the lower dip in the mountain. They were not more 
than four or five hundred yards away. It would take 
them a matter of twenty minutes to make the ascent to the 
cabin. 

He looked at Marge. Despairingly she pointed to the 
mountain behind them. For a quarter of a mile it was a 
sheer wall of red sandstone. Their one way of flight 
286 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 287 

lay downward, practically into the faces of their en¬ 
emies. 

“I was going to rouse you before it was light. Sake- 
wawin ,” she explained in a voice that was dead with hope¬ 
lessness. “ I kept awake for hours, and then I fell asleep. 
Baree awakened me, and now—it is too late.” 

“Yes, too late to run 1 ” said David. 

A flash of fire leaped into her eyes. 

“You mean . . .” 

“We can fight!” he cried. “Good God, Marge—if 
only I had my own rifle now!” He thrust a hand into 
his pocket and drew forth the cartridges she had given 
him. “Thirty-twos! And only eleven of them! It’s got 
to be a short range for us. We can’t put up a running 
fight for they’d keep out of range of this little pea-shooter 
~nd fill me as full of holes as a sieve! ” 

She was tugging at his arm. 

“The cabin, Sakewawin /” she exclaimed with sudden 
inspiration. “It has a strong bar at the door, and the 
elay has fallen in places from between the logs leaving 
openings through which you can shoot!” 

He was examining Nisikoos’ rifle. 

“At 150 yards it should be good for a man,” he said. 
“You get Tara and the pack inside, Marge. I’m going to 
try to get two or three of our friends as they come up over 
the knoll down there. They won’t be looking for bullets 
thus early in the game and I’ll have them at a disadvantage. 
If I’m lucky enough to get Hauck and Brokaw . . .” 

His eyes had selected a big rock twenty yards from the 
cabin from which he could overlook the slope to the first 
dix» below them, and as Marge darted from him to get 


£88 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

Tara into the cabin he crouched behind the boulder and 
waited. He figured that it was not more than 150 yards to 
the point where their pursuers would first appear, and he 
made up his mind that he would wait until they were 
nearer than that before he opened fire. Not one of those 
eleven precious cartridges must be wasted, for he could 
count on Hauck’s revolver only at close quarters. It was 
no longer a time for doubt or indecision. Brokaw and 
Hauck were deliberately pushing the fight to a finish, and 
not to beat them meant death for himself and a fate for 
the Girl which made him grip his rifle more tightly as he 
waited. He looked behind him and saw Marge leading 
Tara into the cabin. Baree had crept up beside him and 
lay flat on the ground close to the rock. A moment or two 
later the Girl reappeared and ran across the narrow open 
space to David, and crouched down close to him. 

“You must go into the cabin. Marge,” he remonstrated. 
“They will probably begin shooting . . .” 

“I’m going to stay with you, Sakewawin .” 

Her face was no longer white. A flush had risen into 
her cheeks, her eyes shone as she looked at him—and she 
smiled. A child! His heart rose chokingly in his throat. 
Her face was close to his, and she whispered, 

“Last night I kissed you, Sakewawin, I thought you 
were dying. Before you, I have kissed Nisikoos. Never 
any one else.” 

Why did she say that, with that wonderful glow in her 
eyes? Couldn’t be that she saw death climbing up the 
mountain? Was it because she wanted him to know*— 
before that? A child! 

She whispered again: 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 289 

And you—have never kissed me, Sakewawin. Why?” 

Slowly he drew her to him, until her head lay against 
his breast, her shining eyes and parted lips turned up to 
him, and he kissed her on the mouth. A wild flood of 
colour rushed into her face and her arms crept up about 
his shoulders. The glory of her radiant hair covered his 
breast. He buried his face in it, and for a moment crushed 
her so close that she did not breathe. And then again he 
kissed her mouth, not once but a dozen times, and then 
held her back from him and looked into her face that was 
no longer the face of a child, but of a woman. 

“Because . . .” he began, and stopped. 

Baree was growling. David peered down the slope. 

'“They are coming!” he said. “Marge, you must creep 
back to the cabin!” 

“I am going to stay with you, Sakewawin . See, I will 
flatten myself out like this—with Baree.” 

She snuggled herself down against the rock and again 
David peered from his ambush. Their pursuers were well 
over the crest of the dip, and he counted nine. They were 
advancing in a group and he saw that both Hauck and 
Brokaw were in the rear and that they were using staffs 
in their toil upward, and did not carry rifles. The re¬ 
maining seven were armed, and were headed by Langdon, 
who was fifteen or twenty yards in advance of his com¬ 
panions. David made up his mind quickly to take Lang¬ 
don first, and to follow up with others who carried rifles. 
Hauck and Brokaw, unarmed with guns, were least dan¬ 
gerous just at present. He would get Brokaw with his 
fifth shot—the sixth if he made a miss with the fifth. 

A thin strip of shale marked his 100-yard dead-line, and 


290 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


the instant Langdon set his foot on this David fired. 
He was scarcely conscious of the yell of defiance that rang 
from his lips as Langdon whirled in his tracks and pitched 
down among the men behind him. He rose up boldly 
from behind the rock and fired again. In that huddled 
and astonished mass he could not miss. A shriek came 
up to him. He fired a third time, and he heard a joyous 
cry of triumph beside him as their enemies rushed for 
safety toward the dip from which they had just climbed. 
A fourth shot, and he picked out Brokaw. Twice he 
missed! His gun was empty when Brokaw lunged out of 
view. Langdon remained an inanimate blotch on the 
strip of shale. A few steps below him was a second body. 
A third man was dragging himself on hands and knees over 
the crest of the couUe. Three—with six shots! And he 4 
had missed Brokaw! Aiwardly David groaned as he 
caught the Girl by the arm and hurried with her into the 
cabin, followed by Baree. 

They were not a moment too soon. From over the edge 
of the coulee came a fusillade of shots from the heavy- 
calibre weapons of the mountain men that sent out sparks 
of fire from the rock. 

As he thrust the remaining five cartridges into the cham¬ 
ber of Nisikoos’ rifle, David looked about the cabin. In 
one of the farther corners the huge grizzly sat on hi* 
quarters as motionless as if stuffed. In the centre of the 
single room was an old box stove partly fallen to pieces. 
That was all. Marge had dropped the sapling bar across 
the door, and stood with her back against it. There was 
no window, and the closing of the door had shut out most 
of the light. He could see that she was breathing quickly. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 291 

and the wonderful light that had come into her eyes behind 
the rock was still glowing at him in the half gloom. It gave 
him fresh confidence to see her standing like that, looking 
at him in that way, telling him without words that a thing 
had come into her life which had lifted her above fear. 
He went to her and took her in his arms again, and again 
he kissed her sweet mouth, and felt her heart beating 
against him, and the warm thrill of her arms clinging to 
him. 

A splintering crash sent him reeling back into the 
centre of the cabin with Marge in his arms. The crash 
had come simultaneously with the report of a rifle, and 
both saw where the bullet had passed through the door 
six inches above David’s head, carrying a splinter as large 
as his arm with it. He had not thought of the door. 
It was the cabin’s vulnerable point, and he sprang out 
of line with it as a second bullet crashed through and 
buried itself in the log wall at their backs. Baree growled. 
A low rumble rose in Tara’s throat, but he did not move. 

In each of the four log walls were the open chinks which 
Marge had told him about, and he sprang to one of these 
apertures that was wide enough to let the barrel of his 
rifle through and looked in the direction from which the 
two shots had come. He was in time to catch a movement 
among the rocks on the side of the mountain about two 
hundred yards away, and a third shot tore its way through 
the door, glanced from the steel top of the stove, and struck 
like a club two feet over Tara’s back. There were two 
men up there among the rocks, and their first shots were 
followed by a steady bombardment that fairly riddled the 
door. David could see their heads and shoulders and 


£92 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


the gleam and faint puffs of their rifles, but he held his 
fire. Where were the other four, he wondered? Without 
doubt Ilauck and Brokaw were now armed with the rifles 
of the men who had fallen, so he had six to deal with. 
Cautiously he thrust the muzzle of his rifle through the 
crack, and watched his chance, aiming a foot and a half 
above the spot where a pair of shoulders and a head would 
appear in a moment. His chance came, and he fired. 
The head and shoulders disappeared, and exultantly he 
swung his rifle a little to the right and sent another shot 
as the second man exposed himself. He, too, disappeared, 
and David’s heart was thumping wildly in the thought that 
his bullets had reached their marks when both heads ap¬ 
peared again and a hail of lead spattered against the cabin. 
The men among the rocks were no longer aiming at the 
door, but at the spot from which he had fired, and uillet 
ripped through so close that a splinter stung his fa , and 
he felt the quick warm flow of blood down his cheek. 
When the Girl saw it her face went as white as death. 

“I can’t get them with, this rifle, Marge,” he groaned 
“It’s wild—wild as a hawk! Good God! . . 

A crash of fire had come from behind the cabin, and 
another bullet, finding one of the gaping cracks, passed 
between them with a sound like the buzz of a monster 
bee. With a sudden cry he caught her in his arms and 
held her tight, as if in his embrace he would shield her. 

“Is it possible—they would kill you to get me?” 

He loosed his hold of her, sprang to the broken stove, 
and began dragging it out of the line of fire that came 
through the door. The Girl saw his peril and sprang to 
help him. He had no time to urge her back. In ten 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O DOONE 29$ 

seconds he had the stove close to the wall, and almost 
forcibly he made her crouch down behind it. 

‘If you ^expose yourself for one second I swear to 
Heaven I’ll stand up there against the door until I’m shot!” 
he thre; t cened. ** I will, so help me God! ” 

His ain was afire. He was no longer cool or self- 
possess 1. He was blind with a wild rage, with a mad 
desire reach in some way, with his vengeance, the human 
beas vho were bent on his death even if it was to be 
gair at the sacrifice of the Girl. He rushed to the side 
of . cabin from which the fresh attack had come, and 
gW I through one of the embrasures between the logs. 
He 7 as close to Tara, and he heard the low, steady thunder 
that came out of the grizzly’s chest. His enemies were 
near on this side. Their fire came from the rocks not more 
than a hundred yards away, and all at once, in the heat of 
the great passion that possessed him now, he became 
suddenly aware that they knew the only weapon he pos¬ 
sessed was Nisikoos’ little rifle—and Hauck’s revolver. 
Probably they knew also how limited his ammunition was. 
And they were exposing themselves. Why should he save 
his last three shots? When they were gone and he no 
longer answered their fire they would rush the cabin, beat 
in the door, and then—the revolver! With that he would 
tear out their hearts as they entered. He saw Hauck, 
fired and missed. A man stood up within seventy yards 
of the cabin a moment later, firing as fast as he could pump 
the lever of his gun, and David drove one of Nisikoos’ 
partridge-killers straight into his chest. He fired a second 
time at Hauck—another miss! Then he flung the useless 
rifle to the floor f\s he sprang back to Marge. 


294 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


“Got one. Five left. Now—damn ’em—let them 
come!’' 

He drew Hauck’s revolver. A bullet flew through one 
of the cracks, and they heard the soft thud of it as it 
struck Tara. The growl in the grizzly’s throat burst 
forth in a roar of thunder. The terrible sound shook the 
cabin, but Tara still made no movement, except now to 
swing his head with open, drooling jaws. In response to 
that cry of animal rage and pain a snarl had come from 
Baree. He had slunk close to Tara. 

“Didn’t hurt him much,” said David, with the fingers 
of his free hand crumpling the Girl’s hair. “They’ll stop 
shooting in a minute or two, and then . . .” 

Straight into his eyes from that farther wall a splinter 
hurled itself at him with a hissing sound like the plunge of 
hot iron into water. He had a lightning inpression of 
seeing the bullet as it tore through the clay between two of 
the logs; he knew that he was struck, and yet he felt no 
pain. His mind was acutely alive, yet he could not speak. 
His words had been cut off, his tongue was powerless—it 
was like a shock that had paralyzed him. Even the Girl 
did not know for a moment or two that he was hit. The 
thud of his revolver on the floor filled her eyes with the 
first horror of understanding, and she sprang to his side as 
he swayed like a drunken man toward Tara. He sank 
down on the floor a few feet from the grizzly, and he heard 
the Girl moaning over him and calling him by name. The 
numbness left him, slowly he raised a hand to his chin, 
filled with a terrible fear. It was there—his jaw, hard, 
unsmashed, but wet with blood. He thought the bullet 
had struck him there. 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 295 

“A knockout,” were the first words, spoken slowly and 
thickly, but with a great gasp of relief. “ A splinter hit me 

on the jaw . . . Fm all right . . 

He sat up dizzily, with the Girl’s arm about him. In 
the three or four minutes of forgetfulness neither had 
noticed that the firing had ceased. Now there came a 
tremendous blow at the door. It shook the cabin. A 
second blow, a third—and the decaying saplings were 
crashing inward! David struggled to rise, fell back, and 
pointed to the revolver 

“ Quick—the revolver! ” 

Marge sprang to it. The door crashed inward as she 
picked it up, and scarcely had she faced about when their 
enemies were rushing in, with Henry and Hauck in their 
lead, and Brokaw just behind them. With a last effort 
David fought to gain his feet. .He heard a single shot 
from the revolver, and then, as he rose staggeringly, he saw 
Marge fighting in Brokaw’s arms. Hauck came for him, 
the demon of murder in his face, and as they went down he 
heard scream after scream come from the Girl’s lips, and in 
that scream the agonizing call of “ Tara ! Tara ! Tara !” 
Over him he heard a sudden roar, the rush of a great 
body—and with that thunder of Tara’s rage and vengeance 
there mingled a hideous, wolfish snarl from Baree. He 
could see nothing. Hauck’s hands were at his throat. 

But the screams continued, and above them came now 
the cries of men—cries of horror, of agony, of death; and as 
Hauck’s fingers loosened at his neck he heard with the 
snarling and roaring and tumult the crushing of great jaws 
and the thud of bodies. Hauck was rising, his face 
blanched with a strange terror. He was half up when a 


296 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


gaunt, lithe body shot at him like a stone flung from a 
catapult and Baree’s inch-long fangs sank into his thick 
throat and tore his head half from his body in one savage, 
snarling snap of the jaws. David raised himself and 
through the horror of what he saw the Girl ran to him— 
unharmed—and clasped her arms about him, her lips 
sobbing all the time—“ Tara — Tara—Tara . . He 

turned her face to his breast, and held it there. It was 
ghastly. Henry was dead. Hauck was dead. And Bro- 
kaw was dead—a thousand times dead—with the grizzly 
tearing his huge body into pieces. 

Through that pit of death David stumbled with the 
Girl. The fresh air struck their faces. The sun of day 
fell upon them. The green grass and the flowers of the 
mountain were under their feet. They looked down the 
slope, and saw, disappearing over the crest of the coulee, 
two men who were running for their liveso 


CHAPTER XXVII 


I T MAY have been five minutes that David held th*j 
Girl in his arms, staring down into the sunlit valley 
into which the last two of Hauck’s men had tied, and 
during that time he did not speak, and he heard only her 
steady sobbing. He drew into his lungs deep breaths of 
the invigorating air, and he felt himself growing stronger 
as the Girl’s body became heavier in his embrace, and her 
arms relaxed and slipped down from his shoulders. He 
raised her face. There were no tears in her eyes, but she 
was still moaning a little, and her lips were quivering like a 
crying child’s. He bent his head and kissed them, and she 
caught her breath pantingly as she looked at him with eyes 
which were limpid pools of blue out of which her terror was 
slowly dying away. She whispered his name. In her 
look and in that whisper there was unutterable adoration. 
It was for him she had been afraid. She was looking at 
him now as one saved to her from the dead, and for a mo¬ 
ment he strained her still closer, and as he crushed his face 
to hers he felt the warm, sweet caress of her lips, and the 
thrilling pressure of her hands, at his blood-stained cheeks. 
A sound from behind made him turn his head, and fifty 
feet away he saw the big grizzly ambling cumbrously from 
the cabin. They could hear him growling as he stood in 
the sunshine, his head swinging slowly from side to side 
like a huge pendulum—in his throat the last echoing 
29 ? 


298 THE COURAGE OF MARGE ODOQNE 


of that ferocious rage and hate that had destroyed their 
enemies. And in the same moment Baree stood in the 
doorway, his lips drawn back and his fangs gleaming, as if 
he expected other enemies to face him. 

Quickly David led Marge beyond the boulder from be* 
hind which he had opened the fight, and drew her down 
with him into a soft carpet of grass, thick with the blue of 
wild violets, with the big rock shutting out the cabin from 
their vision. 

“Rest here, little comrade,” he said, his voice low and 
trembling with his worship of her, his hands stroking back 
her wonderful hair. “ I must return to the cabin. Then— 
we will go.” 

“Go!” 

She repeated the word in the strangest, softest whisper he 
had ever heard, as if in it all at once she saw the sun and 
stars, the day and night, of her whole life. She looked 
from his face down into the valley, and into his face 
again. 

“We—will go,” she repeated, as he rose to his feet. 

She shivered when he left her, shuddered with a terrible 
little cry which she tried to choke back even as she visioned 
the first glow of that wonderful new life that was dawning 
for her. David knew why. He left her without looking 
down into her eyes again, anxious to have these last terrible 
minutes over. At the open door of the cabin he hesitated, 
a little sick at what he knew he would see. And yet, after 
all, it was no worse than it should be; it was justice. He 
told himself this as he stepped inside. 

He tried not to look too closely, but the sight, after a 
moment, fascinated him. If it had not been for the differ- 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 299 

ence in their size he could not have told which was Hauck 
and which was Brokaw, for even on Hauck, Tara had 
vented his rage after Baree had killed him. Neither bore 
very much the semblance of a man just now—it seemed 
incredible that claw and fang could have worked such 
destruction, and he went suddenly back to the door to see 
that the Girl was not following him. Then he looked 
again. Henry lay at his feet across the fallen saplings of 
the battered door, his head twisted completely under him— 
or gone. It was Henry’s rifle he picked up. He searched 
for cartridges then. It was a sickening task. He found 
nearly fifty of them on the three, and went out with the 
pack and the rifle. He put the pack over his shoulders 
before he returned to the rock, and paused only for a mo¬ 
ment, when he rejoined the Girl. With her hand in his he 
struck down into the valley. 

“A great justice has overtaken them,” he said, and that 
was all he told her about the cabin, and she asked him no 
questions. 

At the edge of the green meadows they stopped where a 
trickle of water from the mountain tops had formed a deep 
pool. David followed this trickle a little up the coulee it 
had worn in the course of ages, found a sheltered spot, and 
stripped himself. To the waist he was covered with the 
stain and grime of battle. In the open pool Marge bathed 
her face and arms, and then sat down to finish her toilet 
with David’s comb and brush. When he returned to her 
she was a radiant glory, hidden to her waist in the gold and 
brown fires of her disentangled hair. It was wonderful. 
He stood a step off and looked at her, his heart filled with a 
wonderful joy, his lips silent. The thought surged upon 


300 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 


him now in an overmastering moment of exultation that 
she belonged to him, not for to-day, or to-morrow, but for 
all time; that the mountains had given her to him; that 
among the flowers and the wild things that “great, good 
God,” of whom Father Roland had spoken so often, had 
created her for him; and that she had been waiting for him 
here, pure as the wild violets under his feet. She did not 
see him for a space, and he watched her as she ran out her 
glowing tresses under the strokes of his brush. 

And once—ages ago it seemed to him now—he had 
thought that another woman was beautiful, and that an¬ 
other woman's glory was her hair! He felt his heart 
singing. She had not been like this. No. Worlds sepa¬ 
rated those two—that woman and this God-crowned little 
mountain flower who had come into his heart like the 
breath of a new life, opening for him new visions that 
reached even beyond the blue skies. And he wondered 
that she should love him. She looked up suddenly and 
saw him standing there. Love? Had he in all his life 
dreamed of the look that was in her face now? It made 
his heart choke him. He held open his arms, silently, as 
she rose to her feet, and she came to him in all that burn¬ 
ished glory of her unbound hair; and he held her close in 
his arms, kissing her soft lips, her flushed cheeks, her blue 
eyes, the warm sweetness of her hair. And her lips kissed 
him. He looked out over the valley. His eyes were open 
to its beauty, but he did not see; a vision w T as rising before 
him, and his soul was breathing a prayer of gratitude to 
the Missioner’s God, to the God of the totem-worshippers 
over the ranges, to the God of all things. It may be that 
the Girl sensed his voiceless exaltation, for up through the 


THE COURAGE OP MARGE O’DOONE 301 

soft billows of her hair that lay crumpled on his breast she 
whispered: 

“You love me a great deal, my Sakewawin ?" 

“More than life,” he replied. 

Her voice roused him. For a few moments he had for¬ 
gotten the cabin, had forgotten that Brokaw and Hauck 
had existed, and that they were now dead. He held her 
back from him, looking into her face out of which all fear 
and horror had gone in its great happiness; a face filled 
with the joyous colour sent surging there by the wild 
beating of her heart, eyes confessing their adoration with¬ 
out shame, without concealment, without a droop of the 
long lashes behind which they might have hidden. It was 
wonderful, that love shining straight out of their blue, mar¬ 
vellous depths! 

“We must go now,” he said, forcing himself to break the 
spell. “Two have escaped. Marge. It is possible, if there 
are others at the Nest . . .” 

His words brought her back to the thing they had passed 
through. She glanced in a startled way over the valley, 
then shook her head. 

“There are two others,” she said. “But they will not 
follow us, Sakewawin. If they should, we shall be over 
the mountain.” 

She braided her hair as he adjusted his pack. His 
heart was like a boy’s. He laughed at her in joyous dis¬ 
approval. 

“I like to see it—unbound,” he said. “It is beautiful. 
Glorious.” 

It seemed to him that all the blood in her body leaped 
into her face at his words. 


302 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

“Then—I will leave it that way,” she cried softly, lie: 
words trembling with happiness and her fingers working 
swiftly in the silken plaits of her braid. Unconfined, her 
hair shimmered about her again. And then, as they were 
about to set off, she ran up to him with a little cry, and 
without touching him with her hands raised her face to 
his. 

“Kiss me,” she said. “Kiss me, my Sakewawin /” 


It was noon when they stood under the topmost crags 
of the southward range, and under them they saw once 
more the green valley, with its silvery stream, in which 
they had met that first day beside the great rock. It 
seemed to them both a long time ago, and the valley 
was like a friend smiling up at them its welcome and its 
gladness that they had at last returned. Its drone of 
running waters, the whispering music of the air, and the 
piping cries of the marmots sunning themselves far below, 
came up to them faintly as they rested, and as the Girl 
sat in the circle of David’s arm, with her head against his 
breast, she pointed off through the blue haze miles to the 
eastward. 

“Are we going that way?” she asked. 

He had been thinking as they had climbed up the moun¬ 
tain. Off there, where she was pointing, were his friends, 
and hers; between them and that wandering tribe of the 
totem people on the Kwadocha there were no human beings. 
Nothing but the unbroken peace of the mountains, in 
which they were safe. He had ceased to fear their im¬ 
mensity—was no longer disturbed by the thought that ir> 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 303 

their vast and trackless solitude he might lose himself 
forever. After what had passed, their gleaming peaks 
were beckoning to him, and he was confident that he could 
find his way back to the Finley and down to Hudson’s 
Hope. What a surprise it would be to Father Roland 
when they dropped in on him some day, he and Marge! 
His heart beat excitedly as he told her about it, described 
the great distance they must travel, and what a wonderful 
journey it would be, with that glorious country at the end 
of it . . . “We’ll find your mother, then,” he whis¬ 

pered. They talked a great deal about her mother and 
Father Roland as they made their way down into the 
valley, and whenever they stopped to rest she had new 
questions to ask, and each time there was that trembling 
doubt in her voice. “I wonder whether it’s true .” And 
each time he assured her that it was. 

“I have been thinking that it was Nisikoos who sent 
to her that picture you wanted to destroy,” he said once. 
“Nisikoos must have known.” 

“Then why didn’t she tell me?” she flashed. 

“ Because, it may be that she didn’t want to lose you— 
and that she didn’t send the picture until she knew that 
she was not going to live very long.” 

The girl’s eyes darkened, and then—slowly—there came 
back the softer glow into them. 

“I loved—Nisikoos,” she said. 

It was sunset when they began making their first 
camp in a cedar thicket, where David shot a porcupine for 
Tara and Baree. After their supper they sat for a while 
in the glow of the stars, and after that Marge snuggled 
down in her cedar bed and went to sleep. But before she 


304 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 

closed her eyes she put her arms about his neck and kissed 
him good-night. For a long time after that he sat awake, 
thinking of the wonderful dream he had dreamed all his 
life, and which at last had come true. 


Day after day they travelled steadily into the east and 
south. The mountains swallowed them, and their feet 
trod the grass of many strange valleys. Strange—and yet 
now and then David saw something he had seen once 
before, and he knew that he had not lost the trail. They 
travelled slowly, for there was no longer need of haste; 
and in that land of plenty there was more of pleasure than 
inconvenience in their foraging for what they ate. In her 
haste in making up the contents of the pack Marge had 
seized what first came to her hands in the way of provisions, 
and fortunately the main part of their stock was a 20-pound 
sack of oatmeal. Of this they made bannock and cakes. 
The country was full of game. In the valleys the black 
currants and wild raspberries were ripening lusciously, 
and now and then in the pools of the lower valleys David 
would shoot fish. Both Tara and Baree began to grow 
fat, and with quiet joy David noticed that each day added 
to the wonderful beauty and happiness in the Girl’s face, 
and it seemed to him that her love was enveloping him 
more and more, and there never was a moment now that 
he could not see the glow of it in her eyes. It thrilled him 
that she did not want him out of her presence for more 
than a few minutes at a time. He loved to fondle her hair, 
and she had a sweet habit of running her fingers through 
his own, and telling him each time how she loved it 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 305 

Mmse it was a little gray; and she had a still sweeter way 
of holding one of his hands in hers when she was sitting 
beside him, and pressing it now and then to her soft lips. 

They had been ten days in the mountains when, one 
evening, sitting beside him in this way, she said, with that 
adorable and almost childish ingenuousness which he 
loved in her: 

“It will be nice to have Father Roland marry us, 
Sakewavrin !” And before he could answer, she added: 
“ I will keep house for you two at the Chateau.” 

He had been thinking a great deal about it. 

“But if your mother should live down there—among the 
cities?” he asked. 

She shivered a little, and nestled to him. 

“I wouldn’t like it, Sakewawin —not for long. I love 
this —the forest, the mountains, the skies.” And then 
suddenly she caught herself, and added quickly: “But 
anywhere— anywhere —if you are there, Sakewavrin /” 

“I too, love the forests, the mountains, and the skies,” 
he whispered. “We will have them with us always, little 
comrade.” 

It was the fourteenth day when they descended the 
eastern slopes of the Divide, and he knew that they were 
not far from the Kwadocha and the Finley. Their fif¬ 
teenth night they camped where he and the Butterfly’s 
lover had built a noonday fire; and this night, though it was 
warm and glorious with a full moon, the Girl was pos¬ 
sessed of a desire to have a fire of their own, and she 
helped to add fuel to it until the flames leaped high up into 
the shadows of the spruce, and drove them far back with 
#ts heat. David was content to sit and smoke his pipe 


306 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


while he watched her flit here and there after still more 
fuel, now a shadow in the darkness, and then again in 
the full fireglow. After a time she grew tired and nestled 
down beside him, spreading her hair over his breast and 
about his face in the way she knew he loved, and for an 
hour after that they talked in whispering voices that 
trembled with their happiness. When at last she went to 
bed, and fell asleep, he walked a little way out into the 
clear moonlight and sat down to smoke and listen to the 
murmur of the valley, his heart too full for sleep. Sud¬ 
denly he was startled by a voice. 

“ David!” 

He sprang up. From the shadow of a dwarf spruce half 
a dozen paces from him had stepped the figure of a man. 
He stood with bared head, the light of the moon streaming 
down upon him, and out of David’s breast rose a strange 
cry, as if it were a spirit he saw, and not a man. 

“David!” 

“My God—Father Roland!” 

They sprang across the little space between them, and 
their hands clasped. David could not speak. Before 
he found his voice, the Missioner was saying: 

“I saw the fire, David, and I stole up quietly to see who 
it was. We are camped down there not more than a quarter 
of a mile. Come! I want you to see . . .” 

He stopped. He was excited. And to David his face 
seemed many years younger there in the moonlight, and 
he walked with the spring of youth as he caught his arm 
and started down the valley. A strange force held David 
silent, an indefinable feeling that something tremendous 
and unexpected was impending. He heard the otheCs 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 307 

quick breath, caught the glow in his eyes, and his heart was 
thrilled. They walked so swiftly that it seemed to him 
only a few moments when they came to a little clump of 
low trees, and into these Father Roland led David by the 
hand, treading lightly now. 

In another moment they stood beside someone who was 
sleeping. Father Roland pointed down, and spoke no 
word. 

It was a woman. The moonlight fell upon her, and 
shimmered in the thick masses of dark hair that streamed 
about her, concealing her face. David choked. It was 
his heart in his throat. He bent down. Gently he lifted 
the heavy tresses, and stared into the sleeping face that 
was under them—the face of the woman he had met that 
night on the Transcontinental! 

Over him he heard a gentle whisper. 

“My wife, David!” 

He staggered back, and clutched Father Roland by the 
shoulders, and his voice was almost sobbing in its excite¬ 
ment as he cried, whisperingly: 

“Then you—you are Michael O’Doone—the father of 
Marge—and Tavish—Tavish . . .” 

His voice broke. The Missioner’s face had gone white. 
They went back into the moonlight again, so that they 
should not awaken the woman. 


Out there, so close that they seemed to be in each other's 
arms, the stories were told, David’s first—briefly, swiftly; 
and when Michael O’Doone learned that his daughter was 
in David’s camp, he bowed his face in his hands and 


308 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 


David heard him giving thanks to his God. And then he, 
also, told what had happened—briefly, too, for the minutes 
of this night were too precious to lose. In his madness 
Tavish had believed that his punishment was near—■ 
believed that the chance which had taken him so near to the 
home of the man whose life he had destroyed was his last 
great warning, and before killing himself he had written 
out fully his confession for Michael O’Doone, and had 
sworn to the innocence of the woman whom he had stolen 
away. 

“And even as he was destroying himself, God’s hand 
was guiding my Margaret to me,” explained the Mis- 
sioner. “All those years she had been seeking for me, 
and at last she learned at Nelson House about Father 
Roland, whose real name no man knew. And at almost 
that same time, at Le Pas, there came to her the photo¬ 
graph you found on the train, with a letter saying our 
little girl was alive at this place you call the Nest. Hauck’g 
wife sent the letter and picture to the Royal Northwest 
Mounted Police, and it was sent from inspector to in¬ 
spector, until it found her at Le Pas. She came to the 
Chateau. We were gone—with you. She followed, and 
we met as Metoosin and I were returning. We did not go 
back to the Chateau. We turned about and followed 
your trail, to seek our daughter. And now . . .” 

Out of the shadow of the trees there broke upon them 
suddenly the anxious voice of the woman. 

“Napoo ! where are you?” 

“Dear God, it is the old, sweet name she called me so 
many years ago,” whispered Michael O’Doone. “She 
is awake- Cornel” 


THE COURAGE OF MARGE O’DOONE 309 

David held him back a moment. 

“I will go to Marge,” he said quickly. “I will wake 
her. And you—bring her mother. Understand, dear 
Father? Bring her up there, where Marge is sleep¬ 
ing . . 

The voice came again: 

i( Napao—Napao /” 

“I am coming; I am coming!” cried the Missioner. 

He turned to David. 

“Yes—I will bring her—up there—to your camp.” 

And as David hurried away, he heard the sweet voice 
saying: 

“You must not leave me alone, Napao —never, never, 
never, so long as we live . . 


On his knees, beside the Girl, David waited many min¬ 
utes while he gained his breath. With his two hands he 
crumpled her hair; and then, after a little, he kissed her 
mouth, and then her eyes; and she moved, and he caught 
the sleepy whisper of his name. 

“Wake,” he cried softly. “Wake, little comrade!” 

Her arms rose up out of her dream of him and encircled 
his neck. 

“ Sakewawin,” she murmured. “Is it morning?” 

He gathered her in his arms. 

“Yes, a glorious day, little comrade. Wake!” 


THE END 






















































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